Holger Voss

Who is Holger Voss?

Holger Voss is a German Internet user who was sued in January 2003 for a sarcastic comment pertaining to the September 11, 2001 attacks in an Internet discussion forum, a case that attracted nationwide attention in Germany.

Voss' comment was originally made on June 21, 2002 during the course of a discussion relating to an article in German net magazine Telepolis; it ended with the statement "If you find sarcasm, please re-use it". Voss posted his comment in response to another poster's comment that endorsed the 9-11 attacks. Voss also added a postscript to his comment, in which he remarked that he had added that original poster and another forum user to a blocklist, since he ostensibly took their comments at face value and accused them of Volksverhetzung.

Voss was subsequently charged, following an anonymous report to the police; he received a penalty order for an amount of 1500 euros, which he appealed, and was summoned to a court hearing on January 8, 2003 by the Münster county court. Voss was acquitted of the charge of assentingly accepting that an unbiased reader might interpret his statements as an approval of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the same day; during the course of the trial, it was also revealed that his disclaimer of the posting as sarcasm had been left out from the legal documents provided to the prosecutor by law enforcement agencies.