“walk” refers to criminal prosecution where the alternative is going to prison. This was a civil trial, he was not being prosecuted. The police, despite raiding his house, never charged him with a crime. He was not “found innocent” in a civil suit. He was innocent the whole time even if he lost this trial, it’s just a matter of monetary damage.

Truth is far from the only defense.

Opinion is not defamatory. Satire is not defamatory.

With public officials like police, even false factual statements are not defamatory unless you knew they were false and lied about it specifically to hurt them.

That’s just an example. Germany’s censorship (a violation of human rights to peaceful free expression) doesn’t just stop at political parties.

The fact that they are even discussing a ban of AfD shows how ridiculously dangerous such powers are when held by the state. The AfD is disgusting but until and unless they take up arms, speech is speech. “First they came for the racists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a racist. Then they came for the publishers of violent video games…”

There is no power that you can give to the state that they will not eventually abuse at their convenience. It positively astounds me that Germans do not understand this, given the nation’s history.