Beleidigung in Germany: Criminal Insult under § 185 StGB and How a Strafanzeige Works

Beleidigung, criminal insult, is one of the most searched legal terms in Germany, and the search volume is driven by two very practical questions: what actually counts, and what happens after someone walks into a police station. Germany treats personal honour as a legally protected interest, and Art. 5 Abs. 2 GG expressly names das Recht der persönlichen Ehre as one of the limits on free expression. That is why an insult here is a criminal matter rather than only a private grievance.

This page explains what § 185 StGB punishes, the defences and balancing rules that decide most cases, and exactly how a Strafanzeige and a Strafantrag work in practice, including the deadline that quietly ends more complaints than any argument about the merits. For the wider map of German honour protection, including the two provisions that deal with factual claims rather than judgments, see the German defamation law hub.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What § 185 StGB actually punishes

§ 185 StGB is unusually short. It states the penalty and leaves the definition of the offence itself to the courts: die Beleidigung wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu einem Jahr oder mit Geldstrafe und, wenn die Beleidigung öffentlich, in einer Versammlung, durch Verbreiten eines Inhalts oder mittels einer Tätlichkeit begangen wird, mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu zwei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.

The settled understanding is that a Beleidigung is an expression of disrespect or disregard directed at another person and capable of attacking that person's honour. It has to be aimed at someone identifiable, whether by name or by a description that makes the target recognisable. A vague complaint about a profession or an institution in general is a different question from an attack on a particular person.

Two structural points follow from that. First, § 185 StGB is the provision for value judgments and for abusive expression, while a claim of fact about another person belongs under § 186 StGB or § 187 StGB. Second, the aggravated tier matters more today than the base tier, because so much of what reaches a prosecutor was posted publicly.

The public, assembly and distribution aggravation

The aggravated variants in § 185 StGB, committing the act öffentlich, in einer Versammlung, or durch Verbreiten eines Inhalts within the meaning of § 11 Abs. 3 StGB, raise the ceiling from one year to two. These were added to § 185 StGB for the first time by the Gesetz zur Bekämpfung des Rechtsextremismus und der Hasskriminalität, in force since 3 April 2021. A separate reform had already replaced the older term Schriften with the broader Inhalt in §§ 186 and 187 StGB: the 60. Strafrechtsänderungsgesetz of 30 November 2020, in force on 1 January 2021. That modernisation is what brings ordinary social media posts, messages and video squarely inside the wording.

The same aggravation structure runs through the neighbouring provisions, so the maximum figure that applies to any given set of facts depends on the form the act took, not only on which provision it falls under.

It is worth being precise about the last row, because the figure most often quoted online is wrong. The five year maximum in § 187 StGB is the aggravated tier. The base offence carries up to two years. Treating five years as the standard maximum for Verleumdung overstates the ordinary case considerably.

It does not have to be words

A Beleidigung can be committed by a gesture, an image, a symbol, or conduct. The wording of § 185 StGB itself confirms this by naming the variant mittels einer Tätlichkeit, an act carried out physically against the person, spitting being the standard textbook example. A picture posted with a caption, a manipulated image, or a hand gesture in traffic can carry the same expressive content that a sentence would.

The practical consequence is evidential rather than doctrinal. A gesture leaves no record unless somebody documented it, while a post or a message documents itself. That difference explains why so many of the cases that actually get anywhere began online.

The three month clock, and why it comes first

This is the single fact most likely to change what a reader does today, so it belongs ahead of the doctrine. Beleidigung is an Antragsdelikt. § 194 Abs. 1 Satz 1 StGB states plainly that die Beleidigung wird nur auf Antrag verfolgt, meaning that without a Strafantrag from an entitled person the offence is generally not prosecuted at all.

§ 77b Abs. 1 StGB then supplies the deadline: an act that is prosecutable only on application is not prosecuted where the entitled person fails to file within three months. Under § 77b Abs. 2 StGB that period begins at the end of the day on which the entitled person gained knowledge of both the act and the person of the offender. Where the end of the period would fall on a Sunday, a general public holiday or a Saturday, it runs to the end of the next working day.

A worked example makes the arithmetic concrete. Suppose an insulting post appears on 4 March and the affected person sees it, and identifies who posted it, on 10 March. The period begins at the end of 10 March and runs to 10 June. If a person learns of the post immediately but only identifies the author on 2 May, the clock starts at the end of 2 May instead, because § 77b Abs. 2 StGB requires knowledge of both elements.

Two further details are easy to miss. Under § 77b Abs. 3 StGB, where several people are entitled to file or several people took part in the act, the period runs separately for and against each of them. Under § 77b Abs. 5 StGB the running of the period is suspended while an application for a Sühneversuch under § 380 StPO is pending with the Vergleichsbehörde, until the certificate is issued.

When the period lapses, the criminal route closes regardless of how well documented the incident was. No amount of merit reopens it.

Who is entitled to file

Normally the affected person. § 194 Abs. 1 Satz 6 StGB transfers both the right to file and the right to object to the relatives named in § 77 Abs. 2 StGB where the affected person dies. Where the memory of a deceased person has been disparaged, § 194 Abs. 2 StGB gives the right to those same relatives, the substantive offence being § 189 StGB, Verunglimpfung des Andenkens Verstorbener, which carries imprisonment of up to two years or a fine.

§ 194 Abs. 3 StGB adds a route for insults committed against an Amtsträger, a person under special public service obligations, or a Bundeswehr soldier during or in relation to their duties: the Dienstvorgesetzter may also file. § 194 Abs. 4 StGB requires an authorisation from the body concerned where the act is directed against a legislative organ of the Bund or a Land or another political body.

There are narrow situations in § 194 Abs. 1 and Abs. 2 StGB where no application is needed at all, in particular where the affected person was persecuted as a member of a group under National Socialist or another violent and arbitrary regime and the insult is connected with that persecution. In the cases of § 188 StGB and § 192a StGB the act is also prosecuted where the prosecuting authority considers intervention of its own motion to be called for because of a special public interest.

How and where a Strafanzeige is filed

§ 158 Abs. 1 StPO answers the where directly: die Anzeige einer Straftat und der Strafantrag können bei der Staatsanwaltschaft, den Behörden und Beamten des Polizeidienstes und den Amtsgerichten angebracht werden. All three are competent, and a report made to any of them enters the same system.

Two terms are commonly conflated and are not the same thing. A Strafanzeige is a report that an offence has occurred. A Strafantrag is a separate declaration by an entitled person that they want the act prosecuted, and for an Antragsdelikt such as Beleidigung it is the Strafantrag that carries the legal weight. Reporting the incident without making that declaration does not satisfy § 194 Abs. 1 StGB.

§ 158 Abs. 2 StPO reinforces the point for offences prosecuted only on application: the identity of the person filing and their intention to have the matter prosecuted have to be secured. In practice that is why these filings are documented in person or in a signed written form rather than treated as anonymous tips, and why an online reporting portal will normally still require identification for this category.

§ 158 StPO also addresses transmission of a complaint to another EU member state and language assistance for people who do not speak German, which matters for the expat readership this page is written for. A person who cannot make the declaration in German is not for that reason shut out of the procedure.

What happens next: the Staatsanwaltschaft and the Privatklage route

Filing is not the same as prosecution. The Staatsanwaltschaft decides whether to bring public charges, and for this category of offence its discretion is unusually wide, because Beleidigung sits on the Privatklage list.

§ 374 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 StPO names eine Beleidigung, referring to §§ 185 to 189 StGB, as an offence a private person may prosecute without the prior involvement of the Staatsanwaltschaft, provided the act was not directed against one of the political bodies named in § 194 Abs. 4 StGB. § 376 StPO then sets the filter: for the offences listed in § 374 StPO, public charges are brought by the Staatsanwaltschaft only where that lies in the public interest.

This is the step that surprises people most. A complaint can be entirely well founded and still end with a letter referring the complainant to the Privatklage route, because the prosecutor concluded there was no public interest in a state prosecution. That is not a finding that the insult did not happen.

The Privatklage route has its own gate. § 380 Abs. 1 StPO makes a private charge for Beleidigung admissible only after an unsuccessful Sühneversuch before a Vergleichsbehörde designated by the Landesjustizverwaltung, and the certificate confirming the failed attempt has to be submitted with the charge. § 380 Abs. 2 StPO allows the Landesjustizverwaltung to make the Vergleichsbehörde's work conditional on payment of a reasonable advance on costs, and § 380 Abs. 4 StPO allows the Sühneversuch to be dispensed with, by closer order of the Landesjustizverwaltung, where the parties do not live in the same Gemeindebezirk.

So the realistic sequence for a private insult between two individuals is: Strafantrag within the deadline, a prosecutor's decision on public interest, and in many cases a referral to a conciliation body before any court sees the matter. Describing this as a fast route to a conviction would misrepresent it.

Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG and the narrowing of Schmähkritik

Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG protects the free expression and dissemination of opinion in word, writing and image. Art. 5 Abs. 2 GG places the limits: the general laws, statutory provisions protecting young people, and the right of personal honour. § 185 StGB is one of those general laws, which is why every insult case is at bottom a balancing exercise between two constitutional positions rather than a simple question of whether a word was rude.

German doctrine has long recognised a narrow category, Schmähkritik, where a statement is so exclusively aimed at degrading a person, rather than engaging with any matter at issue, that the balancing tips without a full weighing exercise. The problem in practice was that lower courts began treating the label as a shortcut.

The Bundesverfassungsgericht corrected this in 2020. Its press release 049/2020, issued on 19 June 2020, announced a clarification of the constitutional requirements for criminal convictions based on honour impairing statements, reporting decisions of 19 May 2020. Press release 095/2020, issued on 29 October 2020, announced a successful constitutional complaint against a conviction for Beleidigung, reporting the Beschluss of 19 August 2020 in 1 BvR 2249/19. The through line is that Schmähkritik is a narrow exception, that it is not established merely because an expression is harsh, polemical or exaggerated, and that a court which applies the label still has to explain the balancing rather than skip it.

For a reader, the operational takeaway is modest and honest: a statement that reads as gratuitously degrading is more exposed than one made in the course of a dispute about a matter of substance, but no court decides that from the words alone. Context, occasion and the nature of the exchange all enter the assessment.

§ 193 StGB: Wahrnehmung berechtigter Interessen

§ 193 StGB is the provision that resolves a large share of real cases. It provides that critical judgments about scientific, artistic or commercial performance, statements or acts under § 192a StGB made in order to exercise or defend rights or to pursue legitimate interests, reproaches and reprimands by superiors towards subordinates, official reports or assessments by an official, and similar cases, are punishable only insofar as the presence of an insult follows from the form of the statement or from the circumstances in which it was made.

Read carefully, that is a two step test rather than a blanket permission. A statement made to defend a right or pursue a legitimate interest is in principle not punishable, but the protection falls away where the insult lies in the form chosen or in the circumstances. Making a legitimate point does not license any wording used to make it.

The practical range is wide: a critical product or service review, a complaint to an employer, a submission in a legal dispute, a supervisor's performance criticism, a report filed with an authority. Each can be uncomfortable for its target and still fall outside § 185 StGB, provided the form stays within the point being made.

A related provision closes the obvious loophole in the other direction. § 192 StGB states that proof of the truth of an asserted or disseminated fact does not exclude punishment under § 185 StGB where the presence of an insult follows from the form of the assertion or the circumstances. In other words, truth is a complete answer to a charge about a factual claim, but it is not a licence to package a true fact in a gratuitously degrading form.

§ 199 StGB: insults returned on the spot

§ 199 StGB is one sentence and is frequently decisive in the everyday arguments that produce these complaints: wenn eine Beleidigung auf der Stelle erwidert wird, so kann der Richter beide Beleidiger oder einen derselben für straffrei erklären.

Three features are worth noting. It is a discretionary power of the court, not an automatic bar. It applies where the insult was returned auf der Stelle, immediately, not days later in a follow up message. And it can be applied to one party or to both, which means a person who responded in kind cannot assume the provision will operate in their favour alone.

This is a large part of why escalating arguments, whether at a roadside or in a comment thread, so often end without a conviction for either participant.

Related provisions worth knowing

§ 188 StGB provides a heavier regime where the target is a person in the political life of the people and the act was committed publicly, in a Versammlung or by distributing an Inhalt, for motives connected with that person's position in public life, and is capable of significantly impeding their public work. § 188 Abs. 1 StGB sets imprisonment of up to three years or a fine for a Beleidigung in that setting, and § 188 Abs. 2 StGB sets imprisonment of three months to five years for üble Nachrede and six months to five years for Verleumdung under the same conditions.

§ 192a StGB, verhetzende Beleidigung, addresses a specific modern pattern: sending content capable of attacking human dignity by reviling, maliciously disparaging or defaming a group defined by national, racial, religious or ethnic origin, worldview, disability or sexual orientation, or an individual because of membership of such a group, to a person belonging to that group without being asked to. It carries imprisonment of up to two years or a fine.

§ 200 StGB allows a court, where an insult was committed publicly or by distributing an Inhalt and a penalty is imposed, to order on application that the conviction be published on request, with the manner of publication determined in the judgment and, where the insult was committed by distributing an Inhalt, publication in the same manner where possible.

About those tables of euro figures

Search for Beleidigung and the results fill with tables assigning a euro figure to each individual insult. They should not be read as a tariff, because German law contains no such schedule and no court applies one.

What the law actually provides is § 40 StGB. A fine is imposed in Tagessätze, a minimum of five and, unless a provision says otherwise, a maximum of 360 full Tagessätze. The number of Tagessätze reflects the seriousness of the act. The amount of each Tagessatz is set by the court from the offender's personal and economic circumstances, as a rule starting from the net income the offender has or could have on an average day, subject to leaving the minimum essential for living, and each Tagessatz is set at between one and thirty thousand euro.

The arithmetic is worth doing once. Take a person with a net monthly income of 2.400 EUR. That is roughly 80 EUR of net income a day, so a sentence of 20 Tagessätze produces a fine of about 1.600 EUR. Hold the number of Tagessätze constant and give the same sentence to someone with a net monthly income of 1.200 EUR, and the same 20 Tagessätze produce roughly 800 EUR. The identical words produce a different figure because § 40 Abs. 2 StGB is designed to make the penalty bite comparably rather than to price particular sentences.

That is exactly what the circulating tables obscure. They are collected anecdotes from individual decisions, decided on their own facts, with their own aggravating and mitigating circumstances and their own defendants' finances. Presented as a price list they mislead in both directions, understating what a serious case can carry and overstating what a first, isolated remark usually produces.

The civil route runs in parallel

Criminal liability is not the only consequence of an honour impairing statement, and for many people it is not the more useful one. The civil route provides claims for removal of a statement and for an order restraining its repetition, built on § 1004 Abs. 1 BGB applied by analogy alongside § 823 BGB, and § 823 Abs. 2 BGB additionally attaches liability in damages to a breach of a statute intended to protect another person, which the honour provisions of the StGB are.

The two routes are independent. A prosecutor's decision that there is no public interest in charges under § 376 StPO says nothing about a civil claim, and the three month deadline in § 77b StGB governs the criminal application only. The defamation law hub sets out how the criminal and civil paths relate and where each of the three core offences fits.

Where the statement in question was captured on a recording, a separate body of law governs whether the recording itself was lawfully made and whether it can be used, which is a question independent of what was said. See German recording law for that.

Frequently asked questions