A two-word interjection on live television — "Na doch" — is now the subject of a formal lawsuit. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU said it in response to a host's verbal slip about Left Party Berlin mayoral candidate Elif Eralp and antisemitism. The Left Party's lawyers filed a defamation suit, arguing the remark undermined Eralp's integrity and her ability to form a coalition government in Berlin. Welcome to German lawfare in 2025. The pattern is now unmistakable across the political spectrum. The AfD pressed defamation charges against Chancellor Friedrich Merz for calling its remigration policy "ethnic cleansing." The Greens filed hate speech charges against Merz over immigration remarks. The BSW sued Green politician Robert Habeck for claiming the party was "buying votes" with "troll armies" — that case ended with Habeck paying €12,000 to charity without admitting wrongdoing. No party has clean hands; every party has discovered the same playbook. Media lawyer Christian Solmecke of WBS Legal identifies the structural dynamic plainly: prosecutors almost always dismiss these cases due to insufficient grounds. The Federal Constitutional Court has consistently held that political speech enjoys far wider protection than private speech. Anyone who enters the political arena must tolerate sharp, polemical, even hurtful criticism. The legal merits are beside the point. The point is the headline. "From the point of view of the parties filing the complaints, they are highly effective as a PR strategy," Solmecke told DW. "The political benefit arises entirely independently of the legal outcome." Filing a lawsuit generates a news cycle. The dismissal, months later, generates nothing. The asymmetry is the feature. One case may have genuine constitutional legs. Economy Minister Katherina Reiche posted a speech accusing the Left Party of "openly embracing antisemitism" on the Economy Ministry's official Instagram account. Felix Zimmermann of Legal Tribune Online notes this could violate the constitutional principle of neutrality — a rule forbidding state institutions from vilifying political parties. The distinction: say it on your personal account and it's protected opinion; say it on the ministry's account and it's potentially unconstitutional state action. But even that case illustrates the temporal mismatch at the heart of lawfare. The Left Party filed an urgent motion, yet the Constitutional Court may take weeks or months to decide. By then, Berlin's coalition negotiations will likely be settled and the speech will have had its full political effect. The remedy arrives after the damage is done, and consequences for Reiche will be minimal even if the court rules against her ministry. The deeper concern is what Solmecke calls the "misuse" of law enforcement agencies as political instruments. When every sharp remark risks a criminal complaint — not because the complainant expects to win, but because the complaint itself is the weapon — the threshold for political debate silently rises. The cost is not borne by politicians with legal teams. It is borne by democratic discourse itself, which grows more cautious, more lawyered, and less honest with each filing.
