Czech Constitutional Court rejects complaint from publisher of Hitler's speeches

The Czech Constitutional Court has rejected a complaint from the Guidemedia publishing company against the confiscation of money from its bank account. Police are garnishing the account for up to CZK 7.9 million in connection with the prosecution of the publisher for approving of, denying and justifying genocide.  

The Czech News Agency reports that, according to the database of the Constitutional Court, Guidemedia’s complaint has been labeled manifestly unfounded. Last year the firm published the selected speeches of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, for which they are now being prosecuted. 

According to the complaint, a disproportionate amount of the company’s assets is being garnished. Police officers estimated the amount to garnish as the total of the publication’s print run multiplied by its sales price. 

The print run was 10 000, with each book selling for CZK 790. According to the publishing house, however, its profits cannot be calculated that way, as this method does not take into account the number of books sold, nor the cost of editing, printing and distributing them.  

"If the prosecutors had proceeded in accordance with the law and protected the rights of the plaintiff, they would have restricted the assets being garnished to the profits made from the number of publications actually sold and would have either banned further sale of the books or confiscated the unsold portion of the print run," Guidemedia’s complaint reads. According to the Constitutional Court judges, however, the measures taken at this particular phase of the criminal proceedings are in accordance with the Constitution, although they may ultimately be changed. 

"Measures which seem initially essential may later prove to be disproportionate or excessive given other, milder tools for achieving the same purpose," reads the court’s ruling, authored by rapporteur Ivana Janů. Two managers of the publishing house are also facing prosecution as individuals, as is publicist Lukáš Beer, the author of the texts accompanying Hitler’s speeches in the Guidemedia edition. 

The book is being sold through the internet. Guidemedia representatives claim the publication merely presents readers with authentic, historical texts by Hitler as background information for the free formation of opinions.

The defendants are denying the charges of right-wing extremism. They also recently published the program of Hitler’s Nazi Party, the NSDAP. 

The Czech Republic went through a similar scandal when publisher Michal Zítko published a translation into Czech of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf in the year 2000 without including any commentary on the content. Zítko originally was given a suspended sentence for publishing the book but was acquitted on appeal.