i don’t see it like that. he could have just crossed the swastika and it wouldn’t have been a problem. it is common knowledge in germany that you are not allowed to use any nazi symbols. wether some putin supporter reported him to a police Meldestellen website doesn’t matter because what he did is illegal in germany. and it’s illegal for a good reason. the symbols played their part in forming a volksgeist. just look at the maga hat. it’s straight up illegal because there was so much nazi symbolism left after the 2nd war that the us/uk/france had to radically clean it no questions asked and no exceptions made
also it’s not illegal if the image is for educational or informational purposes so maybe he just could have claimed that. no reason to should “censorship” when it’s literally just a swastica or nazi greeting you can’t do in public.
crossed swastika would still be considered distribution of Nazi symbols. there was already a criminal case many years ago where (if I'm remembering it correctly) a student putting "no nazis"-stickers with a crossed swastika had to defend himself at the court.
but nevertheless - claiming to be victim of censorship is such a common trope nowadays, so maybe the author even reported himself to get some publicity. he is actually a pretty crappy - or let's say controversial - historian and is not really interesting enough for anyone to purposefully discredit him.
interesting, i didn’t know about that case, but i understand the courts decision that it’s just illegal to show no matter the intent, if it’s not educational
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In the EU all that data, including high res LiDAR data has to be made publicly available by the responsible authorities. also high res aerial imagery which with the lidar together you can use to build a 3D model of the surface and ground of military buildings/area in blender, because even that in many cases is not excluded or censored. It’s already used for “criminal activities” by metal detectorists and grave robbers a lot haha but it shouldn’t be too hard for foreign intelligence to render some maps for egoshooters from them to train their soldiers for missions in specific locations
also it’s not illegal if the image is for educational or informational purposes so maybe he just could have claimed that. no reason to should “censorship” when it’s literally just a swastica or nazi greeting you can’t do in public.