US Author Convicted in Berlin for COVID-Critical Tweets, Vows to Stop Criticising German Authorities

American author and satirist C.J. Hopkins, a long-time Berlin resident, was convicted on Monday by the Amtsgericht Tiergarten and ordered to pay a fine of 4,800 euros — 60 daily rates of 80 euros each — following a multi-year legal battle over two posts published on Twitter (now X) in 2022. The posts compared German COVID-19 policy to National Socialism and included an image of a medical face mask overlaid with a swastika, taken from the cover of his book "The Rise of the New Normal Reich." Hopkins said he published the posts to warn against authoritarian developments during the pandemic.

The case has wound through Berlin's courts for several years. The Amtsgericht Tiergarten initially acquitted Hopkins in January 2024, with the presiding judge finding that the posts expressed a recognisable rejection of National Socialism. The prosecution appealed, and in September 2024 the Kammergericht overturned that acquittal, finding Hopkins guilty of using symbols of unconstitutional organisations in two counts. Monday's hearing dealt with sentencing only. The court weighed in his favour that he has no prior convictions and that the posts are more than four years old; against him, that the posts were publicly accessible to a large audience.

In his closing statement, Hopkins offered a sharply sarcastic critique of German justice, saying he would "not dare to criticise German authorities again — no matter how totalitarian they behave." He also faces a separate criminal proceeding related to the distribution of his book.