41 Spring 2026 Throughout history and in the present, a connection between violence and conspiracy narratives or rumors can be observed. This is especially true in times of social instability. Historically, this connection has been well studied for the period of recurrent cholera epidemics in Europe and Russia in the nineteenth century. Repeatedly, rumors and conspiracy narratives led to violent outbreaks against those regarded as responsible for the epidemic.16 A similar pattern can be observed regarding the political persecutions and mass killings of European Jews under National Socialist rule. The conspiracy narratives propagated by the National Socialists about the alleged danger emanating from Jews, based on the notion of a “Jewish world conspiracy,” constituted a core element of National Socialist ideology.17 A “key document” for the narratives spread by Hitler and the NSDAP was the Protokolle der Weisen von Zion.18 These narratives formed the basis for the conviction that one was engaged in a struggle and had to defend oneself violently against this supposed danger. Violence thus took on the character of a paranoid delusion.19 Violence, then, could be characterized as a form of self-defense and was thereby legitimized.20 Similarly, under Joseph Stalin, during the phase of the so-called “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 (which claimed the lives of nearly one million people, mostly Soviet citizens), conspiracy narratives and belief in conspiracies played a central role.21 More recent research has repeatedly demonstrated a correlation between belief in conspiracy narratives and individuals’ willingness to engage in politically motivated violence.22 III. Sanctioning of Conspiracy Narratives under German Criminal Law 1. Conspiracy Narratives and Freedom of Expression under Article 5 (1) of the Basic Law Evidence that social crises have served as catalysts for conspiracy narratives even in recent German history is provided by German criminal statistics. Although crimes connected to conspiracy narratives are not recorded as a separate category in federal crime statistics, in practice there are several offenses that exhibit a certain contiguity to conspiracy narratives. These include violations of the Assembly Act, incitement of the people (§ 130 StGB), insult (§ 185 StGB), resistance to law enforcement officers (§ 113 StGB), and physical attacks on law enforcement officers (§ 114 StGB).23 For the offense of incitement of the people (§ 130 StGB), which will be examined in more detail below, increases in the number of cases recorded by the police over the past decades can be observed in temporal connection with 9/11, the period of increased immigration to Germany since 2015 (referred to as the “refugee crisis”), the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in connection with the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.24 Although conspiracy narratives are associated with the aforementioned offenses in German criminal law, the dissemination of conspiracy narratives as such does not constitute a criminal act. As with other expressions of 16. Boris Mironov and Ben Eklof, A SOCIAL HISTORY OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA, 1700-1917, 182 (Avalon Publishing 2000); George Rude, THE CROWD IN HISTORY. A STUDY OF POPULAR DISTURBANCE IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, 1730–1848, 245 (Lawrence and Wishart 1981). 17. Wolfram Meyer zu Uptrup, “Hitlers Antisemitismus: Ein bloßer ‘Judenkomplex?’ Zur Problematik von Max Domarus’ ‘Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945,’” 30 JAHRBUCH FÜR ANTISEMITISMUSFORSCHUNG 157-180, 167 (2021). 18. Ibid. 19. Id. at 171. 20. Richard Evans, THE HITLER CONSPIRACIES: THE THIRD REICH AND THE PARANOID IMAGINATION (Allen Lane 2020). 21. Fabian Thunemann, VERSCHWÖRUNGSDENKEN UND MACHTKALKÜL. HERRSCHAFT IN RUSSLAND, 1866–1953 (Walter de Gruyter 2019). 22. Daniel Jolley, Mathew D. Marques and Darel Cookson, “Shining a Spotlight on the Dangerous Consequences of Conspiracy Theories,” 47 CURRENT OPINION IN PSYCHOLOGY 1, 3 (2022); Karen M. Douglas, “Are Conspiracy Theories Harmless?” 24 THE SPANISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 1, 2 (2021); Higher Regional Court of Naumburg, judgment of December 21, 2020 (Ref. 1 St 1/20, Halle attack). 23. Mironov, supra note 16, at 61. 24. “Number of police-recorded cases of incitement to hatred in Germany from 1996 to 2024,” STATISTA (Oct. 12, 2025), available at https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/157434/umfrage/polizeilich-erfasste-faelle-von-volksverhetzungseit-1996/
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