As the EU faces a deadline July 9 for trade negotiations with the USA, Germany continues to crack down on conservative media, politicians and activists. Attacks on AfD politicians and right-wing activists are a daily occurrence, arrests of violent Antifa are rare. Police raid average citizens and conservatives for “hate speech” instead. This weekend, conservative radio station Kontrafunk had to cancel a fundraising cruise after local Antifa threatened to capsize the ship.
On February 14th, 2025, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance gave his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, warning of “a retreat of Europe” from “our shared democratic values.” In today’s Europe, “digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy,” Vance charged.
On March 3, FCC Chairman Brendan Car criticized the European Union’s “content moderation law” as “incompatible with America’s free speech tradition and warned of a risk that it will excessively restrict freedom of expression,” Reuters reported.
On May 7, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “requesting a pause on all intelligence sharing with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency,” the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz BfV (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), citing BfV surveillance of the largest opposition party in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
On May 28, citing “troubling instances of foreign governments and foreign officials (taking) flagrant censorship actions against U.S. tech companies and U.S. citizens, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy “that will apply to foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States.”
EU head Ursula von der Leyen had to ask for an extension of the moratorium on President Donald Trump’s proposed 50% tariff on imports from the European Union, which he initially threatened would go into effect on June 1. The moratorium is set to expire July 9.
As the EU tries to hammer out a deal with the USA, the largest EU country, Germany, continues to crack down on free speech and the political opposition in ever more militant fashion.
On June 24, George Orwell’s birthday, German police exercised 65 warrants in 180 police measures nationwide “against criminal hate postings and online hate crime,” the Federal Criminal Office (BKA) said. The Federal police could not tell us the results of these raids, how many charges were pressed, or how many innocents were raided. The raids were conducted together with state-run “hate hotlines” Hesse against Hate and Hotline Respect, which report to the BKA’s Central Hotline for Online Hate ZMI.
GERMANY RAIDS 170 HOMES IN MASSIVE ONLINE “HATE SPEECH” CRACKDOWN
German police stormed homes nationwide, targeting citizens accused of posting hateful or inflammatory comments online.
Interior Minister Herbert Reul says “digital arsonists” won’t hide behind keyboards… https://t.co/osrsUpoxXI pic.twitter.com/vDLJRWbcSd
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 25, 2025
Gateway Pundit spoke to two activists of the right-wing Identitarian Movement who were raided by police on June 24, because they had attended a “Remigration Summit” in Milano, Italy on May 16 (Gateway Pundit reported). At 6 a.m. on June 24, police raided the parents’ house of 21-year old Eric outside Nuremberg, and the Munich frat house of 22-year-old Adrian Segner, allegedly searching for evidence they had attended the Milano summit (even though they posted pictures of themselves there).
Eric saw three reasons behind the raids: “Firstly, intimidation. It’s just not a good feeling having five officers standing around your bed, waking you up; secondly, handicapping you by seizing your communications, which is especially rough on an IT engineer like me. You’re completely cut off from the outside world without your electronic devices; and thirdly, the stab-in-the-dark: they’re hoping they might fight something criminal by accident.” Eric believes the reason given on the search warrant, trying to prove his attendance at the Milan conference, was just a pretext to be able to conduct the raid.
Adrian recounted how 20 to 30 armed police surrounded and stormed the “Danubia” frat house in Munich’s university quarter, breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, June 24. “About a quarter of the officers were plainclothes, and there were three or four armored riot squad officers – as if they were expecting us to fight back – a state prosecutor and two squad leaders: One for my room and one for the frat house. After they searched my room and didn’t find anything, they gave up pretty quickly. I think the squad leader realized how ridiculous it was,” Adrian said. “It was 100% intimidation”, Adrian said. “I was shocked at how pointless it was.”
On July 1st, two Berlin council members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Thorsten Weiss and Alexander Bertram, wanted to give a press conference about the need for more security in Berlin’s notorious Görlitz Park drug-dealing hot spot, but the two local politicians were mobbed by violent gang of “Anti” fascists shot “Run them over!” and had to be evacuated by police escort.
On July 2, 4 young conservatives were attacked by an Antifa mob in Augsburg, Southern Germany, because they wanted to attend a lecture by right-wing activist Martin Sellner, head of the Austrian Identitarian movement. “We were pepper-sprayed in the car we were sitting in, one of us was pepper-sprayed right in the face. The newspapers tried to portray it as a “clash” between left and right, but we were peaceful. It was the Antifa that attacked, only Antifa were arrested”, activist Kevin F. told us. Sellner managed to hold his reading despite being banned from the city by the mayor, without having committed any crime.
YouTuber Futz aka Drunk Punk Junk recounted getting pepper-sprayed (video in German).
This weekend, Swiss-German alternative internet radio Kontrafunk had to cancel a fundraising cruise on Lake Constance between Germany, Switzerland and Austria after massive threats and repression from local Antifa. 70 guests had already reserved tickets and booked travel and accommodations, the program included an all-star list of prominent conservative pundits.
The left-wing mob calling itself “Constance for Democracy” put pressure on the harbor authorities and the captain of the MS Bodensee, even threatening sabotage: “We hope someone helps them if their boat capsizes,” the far-left radicals wrote. The website lists the “Antifascist League” as contact for donations, which is considered Germany’s leading far-left “Anti”-fascist organization, according to Bavarian domestic intelligence. Finally, the ship’s captain had to bow out, his livelihood being threatened and the city government backing the far-left radicals. Kontrafunk founder Burkhard Müller-Ullrich estimates the damage at €15,000 ($17,600) and is collecting donations.
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