CHAPTER 16

• Jurisdiction: United States

CHAPTER 16

Early Start, Slow Progress, Racist Takeover, but Destined Not to Yield: The #MeToo Movement in Germany

Ulrike Lembke¹

The Advent of the #MeToo Movement

Germany's #MeToo moment occurred some years before the #MeToo movement crossed the Atlantic. On the night of January 24, 2013, three feminists—Nicole von Horst, Anne Wizorek, and Jasna Strick—met on Twitter to discuss an article about daily sexism and street harassment. Motivating their meeting was the newspaper publication of sexist remarks by the liberal party's top candidate for the federal parliamentary elections directed at a young female journalist interviewing him as well as an article about misogyny within the newly founded Pirates' Party.² There were also nationwide preparations for the "one billion rising" day, a global campaign to end violence against women and girls.³

Following the example of the hashtag #ShoutingBack,⁴ Anne Wizorek suggested they establish the Twitter handle #aufschrei ("outcry") to share experiences about sexual harassment. Within days, about 57,000 Twitter messages were published that reported mostly female experiences of sexism, harassment, and sexual violence.⁵ The "sexism-debate" entered the media, newspapers, and newsrooms in Germany and was even reported in the New York Times.⁶

On June 21, 2013 #aufschrei was awarded the German Grimme Online Award,⁷ the first hashtag receiving such a (or rather, any) prestigious award.⁸ The jury emphasized that no discussion initiated in social media had met with such a broad response in the traditional media and in politics before. The response had demonstrated the importance of social media for societal debate and public opinion. All users who had constructively discussed the problems of existing everyday sexism had, at the same time, paved the way for a new, dovetailed online and offline debate culture. In 2014, Anne Wizorek published a book on everyday sexism and how to tackle gender discriminatory structures.⁹

The #aufschrei movement not only produced broad public and policy debate about everyday sexism and sexual harassment but also strengthened other movements for a fundamental reform of sexual assault law. Many women's rights organizations in Germany, especially the Federal Association of Rape Crisis Centers and Women's Counselling Centers,¹⁰ campaigned for the implementation of a "No means No" concept in German criminal law, meaning that sexual assault and rape should be punishable without further requirements, such as establishing coercion by the perpetrator or helplessness or defense by the victim. Despite broad public debate on the topic and the fact that the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence¹¹ explicitly required such law reform, the governing parties did not take action. That is, they did not take action before New Year's Eve 2015-16, when a large number of women became victims of sexual harassment and assault at the Cologne main station.

The perpetrators in Cologne were described by the police—which had been obviously unable to handle the situation adequately and guarantee safety in this public space—as young male North Africans. Despite discussing the safety problems, politicians of both the governing party as well as other German parties, among them right-wing populist parties, started a racist debate about foreign sexual offenders, refugees and migrants threatening the German female population.¹² Now, even the conservative parties advocated for amendments to the Penal Code, but only if coupled with a tightening of German asylum law. Members of left-wing parties and the Greens¹³ as well as many civil society organizations had to consider stopping campaigning for the "No means No" concept due to its racist takeover. As it became obvious that conservative and right-wing political stakeholders would continue no matter what, German feminists took various political actions to fight for sexual autonomy and against racism at the same time. But neither the #ausnahmslos ("without exception"/"no excuses")¹⁴ movement nor a multitude of civil society actions could prevent a majority of the federal parliament from enacting amendments to German asylum law that significantly lowered the requirements for expulsion and deportation immediately, after all factions of parliament had passed unanimously the amendments to the Penal Code.

Until today, conservative politicians, right-wing populists, and women from the far-right Identitarian movement ("Daughters of Europe") alike have based their political and electoral campaigning on images and legends of the dangerous strangers from African or Arab "cultures" threatening the (of course, white) German female. Racist takeovers of feminist politics and the toxic entanglement of racism and feigned fighting for women's human rights are among the major obstacles for feminist politics concerning sexual autonomy of women in Germany.

Another form of backlash to the #aufschrei and later #MeToo movement was and still is the narrative of sexual harassment being a question of morals. In March 2013, just before International Women's Day, the federal president of Germany joined the "sexism debate" by stating that when "such a fury of virtue [Tugendfuror¹⁵ ] prevails," he was "less moral than one would perhaps expect from him as a former clergyman."¹⁶ Feminist movements strongly contested this approach,¹⁷ but the buzzwords of "morality politics" and "moral panics" continued to influence or even shape public debate, and, partly, the German legal debate about sexism, sexual harassment, and criminal law reform concerning sexual assault and rape.¹⁸

The actual #MeToo Movement hit Germany late. There was the initial coverage of the Harvey Weinstein revelations in the German press, as there had been worldwide, but it was not before January 2018 that the first German perpetrator was named in public. The newspaper Die Zeit published sexual assault and rape allegations against the famous German film director Dieter Wedel.¹⁹ Three actresses, two of them identified by their names, claimed that Dieter Wedel had raped or tried to rape them in the 1990s, and many others reported that he humiliated and harassed actresses on set. Die Zeit's coverage attempted to distance itself from the "hysterical features that the #MeToo debate has occasionally exhibited" as deputy editor-in-chief Sabine Rückert wrote.²⁰ Alas, this was in vain as Die Zeit faced immediate criticism by other newspapers as well as legal discourse that focused on the statute of limitations and the presumption of innocence and lodged accusations of "trial/execution by media" and, of course, of "morality politics."²¹

Dieter Wedel resigned as artistic director of the Bad Hersfelder Festival²² but denied all accusations. Due to the statute of limitations that applied to the accusations dating from the 1990s, criminal prosecution could not clarify the allegations. But more and more actresses came forward and accused him of sexual assault in the 1970s and 1980s. Documents from a public television broadcaster showed that some incidents were known but declared to be private matters. In early 2018, there was broader media coverage, but the analysis of power structures remained tedious and tenuous, and the television and film industry stayed mostly silent.²³ In contrast, the #MeToo Movement was featured at the international film festival Berlinale with a complaint and support system as well as a panel discussion about #MeToo where important members of the film and television industry were greeted by the federal minister responsible for gender equality.²⁴

In May 2018, six women, including author and presenter Charlotte Roche, accused Gebhard Henke, program director of the public broadcaster WDR, of several instances of sexual harassment between 1990 and 2015.²⁵

Henke denied the accusations. After examination by the WDR, Henke was dismissed based on credible allegations of at least ten women. He sued WDR; the legal dispute was later settled amicably, but Henke was not reemployed. Henke also brought an injunctive action against the newspaper Der Spiegel and Charlotte Roche. He was supported in an open letter from more than twenty women from the film and television industry, who described working with him as controversial, but never abusive.²⁶ Yet two days before the oral hearing in February 2019, Henke withdrew his complaint when given the information that there were seven (prominent) women from the film industry ready to report more cases of sexual harassment.²⁷

Legal Protections

In October 2017, when the #MeToo Movement made news, sexual harassment and harassment on the grounds of sex were prohibited in the workplace by anti-discrimination law, and the recently amended Penal Code prohibited rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment through touching, and any sexual interaction against the noticeable will of another person. In a landmark decision in June 2017, the Federal Labor Court had stated that "sexual harassment in the workplace" is often "an expression of hierarchies and the exercise of power and not of sexual pleasure."²⁸

While earlier German law covering sexual assault and sexual harassment in the workplace had solely focused on the violation of dignity,²⁹ modern German law has been shaped by conforming with international human rights law (German's criminal law covering sexual assault³⁰ ) and European Union directives (covering anti-discrimination law). The European Union Gender Equality Directives explicitly named sexual harassment as discrimination based on sex,³¹ which had important legal consequences such as a shift of the burden of proof in favor of those affected, no requirement of intent on the part of the harasser, and a ban on upper limits for compensation claims. EU Directives covered both sexual harassment in the workplace³² and sexual harassment in access to and supply of goods and services.³³ After lengthy discussions...