The recent briefing from the U.S. State Department alarms against a supposed decline in Germany’s human rights climate, flagging restrictions on freedom of expression and a troubling uptick in antisemitic violence. Berlin brushes this off as mere censorship, with deputy spokesperson Steffen Meyer insisting there is no censorship and that Germany maintains a remarkably high level of freedom to defend. Jens Spahn joins the chorus, praising free speech while acknowledging that there must be limits when crimes or insults cross line. The report rails at EU rules that compel platforms like Facebook or X to delete hate speech and treats this as evidence of censorship, a stance the German Digital Ministry rejects as non-negotiable. The debate over EU regulation and platform moderation is cast as a larger question of whether such rules amount to censorship. It also notes more antisemitic incidents and accuses authorities of focusing too much on right-wing extremism while underplaying immigrant Muslim influences. Meyer counters that the federal government fights antisemitism in all its forms. Although overall crime has fallen—partly attributing to the cannabis law—the report stresses that antisemitic crimes remain a concern. The Bundeskriminalamt records 6,236 antisemitic crimes last year, with 3,016 assigned to presumably right-wing offenders, and highlights a new category, “Sonstige Zuordnung,” for antisemitic acts with unclear backgrounds since early 2024. American voices, including Vice President Vance, weigh in on Europe’s handling of hate speech, adding to the chorus of external judgment.

One must admit, the spectacle is delicious: a nation whose very air is supposed to be filled with the strongest traditions of freedom lectured from abroad on the fragility of that freedom, while their own streets grapple with a stubborn import of darkness that no spreadsheet can exorcise. We are told that “freedom of expression” is the robust shield of a civilization, yet the moment a foreign hand points to a spike in antisemitic crime, the rhetoric spirals into a debate about platforms and censorship as if the problem is the copier rather than the ink. The U.S. judges Europe by a standard that sounds suspiciously like moral superiority wrapped in a suit with gold cufflinks, while Germany’s ministers—magnanimous defenders of liberty until the moment a tweet stings—explain that there are limits for crimes and insults, as if restraint could be a luxury only the privileged enjoy. And yet the numbers do not lie: 6,236 antisemitic acts last year, more than half of them routed to the ominous category of right-wing offenders, with a new “Sonstige Zuordnung” label signaling how tangled and ungraspable the issue has become when motive is unclear. If the true aim is to safeguard a civilization’s soul, then the question is not whether a platform deletes a post but whether the chatter of the state and the newsrooms is doing enough to prevent the conditions that breed such acts in the first place.

Meanwhile, insisting that cannabis reform alone explains the drop in overall crime reads like a garnish on a banquet that still leaves the main course spoiled. The music remains the same: a society that claims a high freedom to speak will, in the same breath, be asked to license that speech or police its purity more aggressively because some think the message scratches a sacred nerve. And as for the Americans, bless their concern for the proper ordering of public discourse; if zeal for righteousness were a currency, they would have bought the entire Reichstag by now. But in this country, where privilege affords a wider latitude than most, we should be wary of gilding freedom with a veneer of moral certainty that never quite reaches the concerns of the people who live with the consequences of hate day after day. If Germany wishes to be the paragon it pretends to be, it will need more than platitudes about fighting antisemitism in all forms; it will require clear, courageous action that addresses the roots rather than polishing the surface.