Anadolu staff
17 October 2025•Update: 17 October 2025
BERLIN
German authorities raided prominent author and politician Jurgen Todenhoefer's home and seized his phones and computers after he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on social media, he said Friday.
Todenhoefer, who also leads the Justice Party, said Munich police opened criminal proceedings against him following a social media post in which he criticized Netanyahu and compared Israeli military actions in Gaza to Nazi atrocities.
"A German court is now taking action against me because I harshly criticized Netanyahu and Scholz," Todenhoefer said in a statement posted on social media, referring to former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "This is a frontal attack on freedom of expression," he said.
Despite facing potential criminal charges, Todenhoefer vowed to continue speaking out. He said authorities appear to be trying to silence his criticism of Netanyahu, but he insisted he will continue to openly criticize the Israeli government's unlawful actions against the Palestinian population.
"I have always advocated for Israel's right to exist, but equally for Palestine's right to exist," he said, dismissing accusations of antisemitism or relativizing the Nazi genocide of Jews.
"I have repeatedly written that Jewish Germans are 'an important and valuable part of our people' and that the Holocaust is incomparable in its barbarism," Todenhoefer said, adding that his works repeatedly point out that the World War II Holocaust remains the greatest crime in German history.
On the potential consequences of the investigation into him, Todenhoefer struck a defiant tone.
"If a prison sentence comes out of this investigation, it will be an honor for me to serve it. Because standing up for peace and freedom in Palestine is our duty,” he said. “It cannot be that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, is warmly invited to Germany by the chancellor, while his critics are threatened with prison, house searches, and confiscation.”
Todenhoefer, 85, served as a lawmaker from 1972 to 1990. He later became deputy chair of Hubert Burda Media group. He has authored numerous bestsellers on peace and conflict in the Middle East, and donated his book royalties to children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
