Overview

• On July 23, Amtsgericht Tiergarten acquitted El Hotzo of approving Trump’s shooting and disturbing public peace, ruling his X post was harmless satire.
• Prosecutors characterized their August 1 filing as an “unbestimmtes Rechtsmittel” and will decide the proper appeal route after reviewing the court’s written reasoning.
• The public prosecutor had sought a €6,000 fine, arguing the satirical post leveraged Hotzo’s 740,000-strong X following to risk public order.
• Hotzo’s deleted post compared the shots to the “last bus” and praised the death of “fascists,” prompting criminal complaints and RBB’s termination of his Radio Fritz collaboration.
• The appeal underscores ongoing legal tensions in Germany over the boundaries between satirical expression and hate-speech prohibitions.