Czech Police intervene against yet another publisher of antisemitic books

Members of the National Center against Organized Crime (NCOC) have intervened in Brno and other locations around the Czech Republic against the people behind the Guidemedia publishing house, the company that has released, for example, the antisemitic children's book  Der Giftpilz  ("The Poisonous Mushroom") by the Nazi author Ernst Hiemer and the speeches of Adolf Hitler in Czech translation. Jaroslav Ibehej, spokesperson for the NCOC, has confirmed that police undertook the raid.

News server DeníkN.cz was the first to report the news. Police suspect the publishing house of supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms and of denying, doubting, approving of and justifying genocide.

"I can say that our unit is undertaking the steps of a criminal proceeding. We will not be discussing the details of those steps. The communication of any information from the criminal proceedings is exclusively done by the Brno Municipal Prosecutor," Ibehej said.

Ivo Hahn, spokesperson for the Brno local assembly, could not be reached for comment when this article was first published on 10 June; news server Romea.cz had previously reported that officers from the Department of Extremism and Terrorism had also raided the Prague shop of the publishing house "Naše vojsko" ("Our Troops"), which is selling a calendar for 2021 with portraits of the main Nazi war criminals. That case is being supervised by the District Prosecutor for Prague 5.

Aleš Cimbala, spokesperson for the Prague 5 Prosecutor, told news server Novinky.cz that the ongoing case does concern that calendar. Several organizations filed crime reports over it.

Both the German and the Israeli ambassadors to the Czech Republic also criticized the calendar. According to the Czech News agency, the "Naše vojsko" shop near the Anděl metro station in Prague 5 is now closed after officers spent about an hour and a half there and confiscated calendars, coffee mugs, and t-shirts with Nazi portraits.

As for Guidemedia, it had previously released the speeches of Adolf Hitler in Czech translation and faced prosecution for approving of genocide and supporting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms. Last year the Supreme Court acquitted the company of those charges.

Guidemedia has also released a classic work of anti-Jewish propoganda, the book "The Poisonous Mushroom" by the Nazi author Ernst Hiemer. The Federation of Jewish Communities filed a crime report over the sale of that book this year.