798 prosecutions for Nazi activities in 2017, 409 in the first half of 2018. These are not all politicians, nor all the occasional public figure like David Irving. They are average Joes, posting or saying something in public or drawing swastikas on things.
The article doesn't say what activities were prosecuted in detail; the law prohibits much more than just Holocaust denial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotsgesetz_1947, but all of them are of the form "you are not allowed to say certain things".
You might meet a right-wing policeman who doesn't mind, or you might have to put something in writing or be caught on camera, but overall these are not things that the justice system takes lightly.
No you don't understand. When people get prosecuted for Nazi activities it's usually much more than merely saying "The Holocaust didn't happen." Americans in general really overestimate the extent to which these kinds of laws are enforced. This generally stems from a divide between the 'spirit of the law' (it's mainly meant to prohibit political figures from being openly Nazi) and the 'letter of the law' (thinking a policeman will literally handcuff you if you say 'The Holocaust didn't happen' to their face). Americans generally feel the need to spell out every little thing for fear of the law being gamed or selective enforcement (this is why EULAs and License agreements have obnoxious 20-page unreadable legalese crap), whereas continental Europe has a more relaxed approach to the spirit of the law and favors clarity through brevity. A similar misunderstanding arose when GDPR enforcement was looming.
798 prosecutions for Nazi activities in 2017, 409 in the first half of 2018. These are not all politicians, nor all the occasional public figure like David Irving. They are average Joes, posting or saying something in public or drawing swastikas on things.
The article doesn't say what activities were prosecuted in detail; the law prohibits much more than just Holocaust denial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotsgesetz_1947, but all of them are of the form "you are not allowed to say certain things".
You might meet a right-wing policeman who doesn't mind, or you might have to put something in writing or be caught on camera, but overall these are not things that the justice system takes lightly.