> In its application to statements about groups, the German law of insult
had a development very similar to the Anglo-American law of libel.1 The
Supreme Court had decided at an early date that statements about a class
of people were punishable only if it could clearly be established that they
were directed against definite individuals. An insulting remark about "Jews
generally" was not considered within the statute. This view was reaffirmed
in 1931 in a case in which a general attack on the Jews was held to be "not
directed in a sufficiently recognizable manner against individual Jews."
Similarly, an attack against the "German Jews" was held not to be suffi-
ciently restricted, although in a few instances persons were convicted for
insulting the Jewish inhabitants of small communities
Even known extremists, posting lies about people who were targetted for being Jewish, were let off, where the same lie about any random person could have led to a year in prison:
> In one of several cases
against Julius Streicher, the editor of the Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer,
a fine of 400 marks (then less than $100) was levied for an article which
stated that a Jewish attorney, Dr. Wassertriidinger of Nuremberg, had
committed perjury. The opinion of the court was that in spite of the seri-
ousness of the libel and of a prior conviction of Streicher, no prison sentence
be inflicted because "the defendant is a fanatic whose statements cannot
be taken too seriously." Similar tenderness in meting out punishment was
frequently explained by the characterization of the defendants as zealots.
> Furthermore,
the immunity of the members of the Reichstag often protected Nazi depu-
ties against criminal prosecution. Those deputies became the so-called re-
sponsible editors of many newspapers—frequently one deputy was the
editor of several newspapers—and thus made criminal prosecution for
many libelous publications impossible. Although the Reichstag could waive
the immunity of its members, it did so infrequently and then only after
long delays.
So it looks like we tried not censoring them, and suprisingly, it didn't work.
Well you're thinking wrong.
1930s Germany actually had hate speech laws.
Didn't help.