AIBU to advise anyone who is ever rude to stay out of Germany?

[Zebrasarecooler]

I've just come across a German law which says that if you insult someone and they report you you'll be prosecuted. Punishment is up to one year in prison, or up to two years if you insulted the person in public or in a group setting. Or a fine.
In case people think that this only applies to really serious insults, here's some advice from a German law firm:

Examples of criminal insults:

VERBAL INSULTS:
Calling someone an ‘arsehole’, ‘idiot’, ‘slut’ or ‘scumbag’.
A member of the public calls a police officer on duty a ‘cop scum’.
An employee calls their line manager a ‘loser’ during a meeting.

GESTURES AND ACTIONS:
Giving the middle finger whilst driving.
Making an obscene gesture during an altercation.
Spitting at someone’s feet.

INSULTS ONLINE:
Defamatory comments on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Sharing defamatory memes or caricatures.
Insults in WhatsApp groups.

I did driving lessons in Germany and it's emphasised multiple times in the compulsory theory lessons that you must never ever give the finger in road rage as you could be arrested. Also other hand gestures e.g. one that means Dummkopf (sort of an idiot version of dickhead). To me this rather suggests that it's not that uncommon for younger people to use these gestures. Indeed they're common enough there's a school child name for it (Stinkefinger).

I think one thing about German culture is that people are very rarely seethingly angry with each other in the first place. If something happens which bothers anyone, it's totally normal to point it out, politely but firmly and directly. It's not seen as impolite to disagree, either. Most of the time disagreements are sorted out with this lower level robust discussion and nobody bottles things up or escalates. Obviously that happens sometimes, but it seems much rarer.

So what? 😂

Extremely controlling Germany. Once again.

Are German prisons full of people who have been rude to someone?

I suspect not. This sounds about as likely as there being people who've been refused entry to Spain because of the requirement that you need to prove you have thousands of pounds in spending money if you want to go on holiday there.

Germans are far more likely to tell you that you are doing something wrong (especially crossing roads on red lights as a pp said - I have been told off for that at least twice. What I can't grasp about that law is that if a road doesn't have lights I can cross where I want, even if there are cars around, but if it does, I can't cross when I want, even if there aren't cars around).

I agree that you can disagree there and people are still friends. Disagree with someone here and they never speak to you again. But I lived there for 2.5 years and I never heard of this law. I fear retail workers would come unstuck as they are super-rude in a lot of cases.

As for eye-rolling, that's where sunglasses are helpful. They hide eye-rolling and giving people the side-eye ;)

Brits don't have a reputation for being rude though. Anything but. They do have a reputation for drinking too much of course.

As the Scots have recently proved by drinking Boston dry!

We lived in Germany in the '80s and it was certainly the case that using hand gestures to another driver was illegal! A few years later we had a couple of German teachers from a school exchange staying with us, back in UK, and over a few beers we were talking about language etc and they said that becuase German doesn't have a large number of swear words, they tend to use English, though we did a learn a few of their swear words!

Do you believe everything someone says in a podcast? You clearly want to paint Germany as some sort of totalitarian hellhole but even in Germany the police can't just search your house because they called someone a Schwachkopf.

While it might seem quite amusing, the law means Germany can end up with a case like this, where a woman calling a gang rapist a pig is sentenced to prison, while the rapist himself doesn’t serve a day: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/28/german-woman-given-harsher-sentence-than-rapist-for-calling/

Yes I’d like a politer society, but I also think women shouldn’t be criminalised for calling gang rapists pigs. How is that defamation (truth is an absolute defence) and why is it worse than rape??

I was in Brisbane and I crossed the road. A policeman made me go back and wait for the green signal!!!!!

😂
I did once, but I think I got away with it....

Yes exactly our own hate speech laws arent any different really, only the names are different. If someone feels offended apparently thats all thats needed to 'prove' that someone committed a crime.

That’s me NEVER going to Germany then. Oh well 😂

What UK law are you talking about? There's a hate speech law in Scotland, but it's about what someone might say about people with particular characteristics and due to those characteristics - race / sexuality / trans / disabled I think. It's a very concerning piece of legislation, obviously brought in to benefit trans people, but it's nothing like the German law. I'm not aware of any standalone hate speech law in England? And there's certainly nothing which makes it a criminal offence just to be rude to someone. Are you thinking of harassment law? That doesn't go anywhere near as far as this German law does.

I believe what 2 clearly knowledgeable Germans discussed on their current affairs based podcast a lot more than I believe you just randomly saying that you don't believe it. They were discussing an actual case and mentioned several times that the police had the power to search your house and examine your computer. The case they were discussing related to insulting a politician.

I should also say that I like Germany, have taken the trouble to learn German and was over in Germany recently to visit a German friend. I found the people there helpful and friendly. That doesn't mean that I can't bring up a law that concerns me. Or should we all just shut up about everything we come across in life? I'm not sure that's in the spirt if Mumsnet.

Why don't you name names, both of the podcast or the politician involved in this supposed case?
Well, I googled and the only thing I can find (link below) is a case involving Lauterbach and Habeck, where someone got a suspended six month prison sentence but this wasn't just insults but included open calls for having both of them assassinated. You'd get into trouble for that in the UK as well. The article also mentions that another case (involving Merz) did not lead to a charge because the insult was considered to be within free speech rights and there was no threat issued.
There is one case where an AfD politician got fined for insulting a member of the public on a train.
Also, googling this the Bund and the Laender seem to working towards making insulting politicians not a criminal offence in the first place.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-02/amtsgericht-trier-beleidigung-robert-habeck-karl-lauterbach-verurteilung-gxe

Yeah, I know I was semi-joking about my mum (she's been here 2 weeks, cut me some slack) but some of your posts are really fucking offensive. Good job you don't plan to visit Germany, what with being so rude and all.

Gosh even our place names are a bit insulting! There is a village in Gloucestershire called Old Sodbury, and another one near it called Little Sodbury.

(If we were in Germany right now instead of the UK, my neighbour would not be mowing his lawn, like he does every Sunday morning at 8.30 am. I wish he would go and live in Germany tbh. That'd learn him).

Absolutely this!

Sorry, what's a GC sticker? 🤔

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60130082

We have an unwritten constitution in the UK and I regard it as my constitutional right to nip across when the road is clear. In fact I think it’s a discourtesy to drivers to press the stop button in places where there’s always a gap in traffic in a few minutes.

There’s an annoying pedestrian crossing near me that takes so long to turn to green that, outside the rush hour, by the time traffic lights turn to red, the waiting pedestrians have always been able to cross the road. This has the result that traffic has to stop at a by now completely deserted crossing.

A friend of mine was in Germany, which he knew very well, and was about to cross a road when a firm hand descended on his shoulder and prevented him from moving until it showed green. I wouldn’t like that approach.

Quoting my own post @EvieBB because I realized the BBC link still contains the claim that razorblades have been put underneath posters and stickers (to harm people who are trying to remove them). There is no evidence that this has ever happened. It's shocking but not surprising that the BBC never corrected or updated this.