Verleumdung in Germany: Knowingly False Statements Under § 187 StGB

Verleumdung is the most serious of the three German defamation offences, and it is also the word people use most loosely. In everyday German it gets applied to anything unpleasant that has been said about someone. In § 187 StGB it means something far narrower: asserting or spreading a factual claim about another person against better knowledge, meaning the speaker knew the claim was untrue when they made it.

That knowledge element is the whole difference between § 187 StGB and § 186 StGB. It is also why a large share of complaints filed as Verleumdung end up being examined as üble Nachrede instead, since proving what somebody knew at the moment they spoke is considerably harder than proving that a statement was made.

This page sets out what § 187 StGB actually requires, how its penalty tiers work and why the figure of five years is quoted far more often than it applies, how the offence sits next to § 186 StGB and § 185 StGB, what the reporting deadline is, and how the criminal and civil routes run alongside each other in German law.

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

What § 187 StGB actually says

§ 187 StGB is headed Verleumdung. It applies to a person who, against better knowledge, asserts or spreads an untrue fact in relation to another person where that fact is capable of making the other person contemptible, of lowering them in public opinion, or of endangering their credit.

Four elements have to line up. There must be a Tatsache, a fact capable of being proved true or false, rather than an opinion. It must relate to another identifiable person. It must be untrue. And the speaker must have acted wider besseres Wissen, which means positive knowledge of the untruth rather than carelessness or a strong suspicion.

The third route in the provision is worth noting on its own. Alongside making a person contemptible or lowering them in public opinion, § 187 StGB also covers claims capable of endangering the person's Kredit, meaning their commercial creditworthiness. That branch appears in § 187 StGB but not in § 186 StGB, which is one of the few textual differences between the two beyond the mental element.

Note also the verb pair. Behaupten means putting the claim forward as one's own, and verbreiten means passing on somebody else's claim. Repeating a knowingly false allegation is covered by the provision in the same way as inventing it.

Verleumdung, üble Nachrede and Beleidigung side by side

The three provisions form a graded system rather than three unrelated offences, and searching for one of them almost always means the reader is trying to place their situation among the other two.

Two lines separate them. Fact against value judgment separates § 185 StGB from the other two, and knowledge of falsity separates § 187 StGB from § 186 StGB. A statement that cannot be proved true sits in § 186 StGB territory; the same statement made by someone who knew it was invented sits in § 187 StGB territory. The mechanics of the § 186 StGB test are set out at üble Nachrede and statements that cannot be proved true, and the insult offence is covered at criminal insult.

A worked example makes the boundary concrete. Suppose a former colleague writes in a public forum that a named accountant embezzled funds from a client. If the accountant did so, and it can be proved, no defamation offence arises on the facts, although the manner of expression can still matter under § 192 StGB. If it cannot be proved either way, the statement falls to be assessed under § 186 StGB, because the speaker carries the risk of non provability. If the colleague invented the allegation and knew perfectly well that it never happened, the case is one of § 187 StGB.

The penalty tiers, and where the five year figure comes from

The number that circulates online is five years, and it is the wrong number for most cases. § 187 StGB sets a base penalty of imprisonment up to two years or a fine. The five year ceiling applies only in the aggravated variant, where the act was committed publicly, in an assembly, or by disseminating content within the meaning of § 11 Absatz 3 StGB.

The same three way aggravation runs through the neighbouring provisions. § 185 StGB carries up to one year or a fine, rising to up to two years where the act was public, committed in an assembly, carried out by disseminating content, or committed by means of a physical act. § 186 StGB carries up to one year or a fine, rising to up to two years in the same public, assembly or dissemination situations.

The reference to § 11 Absatz 3 StGB is what pulls the internet into the aggravated tier. That paragraph defines Inhalte as material contained in writings, on audio or image carriers, in data storage, in images or other embodiments, or transmitted by means of information or communication technology independently of any storage. A post, a message forwarded to a group and a video all fall within it.

The change to that wording is recent. The 60. Strafrechtsänderungsgesetz of 30 November 2020, in force on 1 January 2021, modernised Schriften to Inhalt in §§ 186 and 187 StGB. The separate Gesetz zur Bekämpfung des Rechtsextremismus und der Hasskriminalität, in force since 3 April 2021, added the public, assembly and dissemination aggravation to § 185 StGB for the first time. It did not raise the ceiling in § 187 StGB, so any account that says the 2021 reform increased the Verleumdung penalty is incorrect.

A separate and heavier tier for political life

§ 188 StGB deals with the same conduct directed at a person involved in the political life of the people, down to municipal level, where the act is committed publicly, in an assembly or by disseminating content, is connected with that person's position in public life, and is capable of making their public work considerably more difficult.

Under that provision an act falling under § 186 StGB carries imprisonment from three months to five years, and an act falling under § 187 StGB carries imprisonment from six months to five years. These are the only variants in this area of the code with a minimum sentence rather than a fine option, which reflects the protective purpose of the provision.

§ 194 StGB adds a procedural difference here. For § 188 StGB and § 192a StGB the Staatsanwaltschaft may proceed on its own initiative where it considers that a special public interest calls for intervention, although the prosecution stops if an entitled person objects.

Truth, and what it does and does not settle

Since § 187 StGB requires the statement to be untrue, truth is a complete answer to it. Two further provisions refine how truth works across this group of offences.

§ 190 StGB deals with allegations of criminal conduct. Where the asserted fact is a criminal offence, proof of truth is treated as furnished if the person concerned has been convicted of that offence with binding effect, and it is excluded if that person had been acquitted with binding effect before the assertion was made.

§ 192 StGB works in the opposite direction. Proof that the asserted fact is true does not exclude punishment under § 185 StGB where the existence of an insult follows from the form of the assertion or from the circumstances in which it was made. In plain terms, a true allegation can still be delivered in a way that is itself an insult.

The § 193 StGB defence

§ 193 StGB carries the heading Wahrnehmung berechtigter Interessen, the pursuit of legitimate interests. It covers critical judgments on scientific, artistic or commercial work, statements made in order to exercise or defend rights or to pursue legitimate interests, reprimands by a superior towards subordinates, official reports or assessments by an official, and similar cases. These are punishable only insofar as the existence of an insult follows from the form of the statement or from the circumstances in which it was made.

The provision is the statutory hinge for the constitutional balance between freedom of expression under Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG and the general personality right. It is where a journalist's reporting, a customer review, a warning to colleagues or a submission in litigation is weighed rather than simply measured against the reputational damage caused.

Its reach across the three offences is uneven. § 193 StGB can operate for statements assessed under § 185 StGB and § 186 StGB, but a knowingly untrue factual assertion has no recognised legitimate interest behind it, which is a further practical reason why § 187 StGB findings are comparatively rare.

Schmähkritik is narrow, and it is not a shortcut

Schmähkritik, abusive criticism, is the label courts use for statements so devoid of any connection to a substantive dispute that no balancing with freedom of expression is required. The Bundesverfassungsgericht has narrowed it considerably.

In its decisions of 19 May 2020, reported in press release 049/2020, and in the decision of 19 August 2020 in 1 BvR 2249/19, reported in press release 095/2020, the court held that this category is a narrow exception with strict prerequisites. It applies where a statement no longer has any discernible connection to a substantive engagement and amounts only to the groundless denigration of a person, or where a statement touches human dignity or is a formal insult.

The practical consequence matters more than the doctrine. Labelling a statement Schmähkritik does not remove the need for the Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG balancing exercise; it is the rare case where that exercise falls away, and a court has to demonstrate from concrete circumstances that the case is one of them. Courts that reach for the label as a shortcut have repeatedly been reversed.

Strafantrag, and the three month deadline

The offences in this group are Antragsdelikte. § 194 StGB provides that an insult is prosecuted only on application, and § 77b StGB sets the period for that application at three months.

The three months run from the end of the day on which the entitled person obtains knowledge of both the act and the identity of the offender. Both elements are needed, so time does not begin to run against a person who knows what was posted but not who posted it. If the period ends on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, it extends to the next working day.

Missing the period closes the criminal route regardless of how strong the case is on the merits. § 194 StGB also contains exceptions to the application requirement, including situations connected with persecution under National Socialist or another arbitrary rule, provisions for insults directed at officials where the superior may apply, and provisions for the memory of a deceased person, which is the subject of § 189 StGB.

Strafanzeige, Privatklage, and who decides

A Strafanzeige is simply the communication of a suspected offence to the police or the Staatsanwaltschaft. It starts an examination; it does not start a prosecution and it does not put the person reporting in charge of the case. A Strafantrag is a distinct declaration that the offence should be prosecuted, and it is the one governed by the three month period.

Whether charges follow is the decision of the Staatsanwaltschaft. § 376 StPO provides that public charges for the offences listed in § 374 StPO are brought only where this is in the public interest, and the defamation offences are on that list. In a private dispute between two individuals the file is often closed with a reference to the private prosecution route rather than charged.

That route is the Privatklage. Under § 374 Absatz 1 Nummer 2 StPO an insult within §§ 185 to 189 StGB may be pursued by the injured person by way of private prosecution without first calling on the Staatsanwaltschaft, unless it is directed at one of the political bodies named in § 194 Absatz 4 StGB. Private prosecution puts the conduct of the case, and its cost risk, on the private party.

One further provision belongs here. § 200 StGB allows the court, where the offence was committed publicly or by disseminating content, to order on application that the conviction be made public, with the manner of publication determined in the judgment and, in dissemination cases, ideally through the same medium.

The civil route runs in parallel

Criminal proceedings and civil proceedings in Germany are separate tracks, and both can be pursued over the same statement at the same time. A criminal outcome does not decide the civil claim, and a decision by the Staatsanwaltschaft not to charge does not close the civil door.

Civil claims for defamation rest on the general personality right, which German courts derive from Art. 2 Abs. 1 in conjunction with Art. 1 Abs. 1 GG and treat as a sonstiges Recht within § 823 Abs. 1 BGB. A second, parallel basis runs through § 823 Abs. 2 BGB, which imposes liability on a person who breaches a statute intended to protect another, with §§ 185 to 187 StGB serving as such protective statutes.

Removal and injunctive relief come from a different place. § 1004 BGB is drafted for interference with property, giving the owner a claim against the disturber for removal of the interference and, where further interference is to be feared, for an injunction. German courts apply it by analogy to the personality right, and that analogous application is the basis on which a court orders a statement deleted or prohibits its repetition.

That difference in remedy is what usually drives the choice of route. The criminal route can produce a fine or a sentence against the speaker; it does not by itself take a post down. The civil route is the one that produces removal, an injunction backed by a penalty for breach, a correction where appropriate, and in serious cases monetary compensation.

Why online cases turn on identification

In practice the difficulty in most internet defamation matters is not deciding which section applies. It is establishing who wrote the statement, because a name on an account is not evidence of authorship and an account may have been created with no verified details at all.

For the civil route there is a statutory path. § 21 TDDDG, part of the Telekommunikation-Digitale-Dienste-Datenschutz-Gesetz, allows providers of digital services to disclose subscriber data where this is necessary to enforce civil claims for damage caused by unlawful content, including content within §§ 185 to 187 StGB and § 189 StGB. The disclosure requires a prior court order, which the affected person applies for at the Landgericht, and the provider participates in that proceeding.

Even a successful order returns only the data the provider holds, which may amount to an IP address and a timestamp rather than a name. Working from there to an identified individual involves a further step against the access provider, and it can fail for ordinary technical reasons such as address sharing or expired retention. This is the point at which many otherwise strong matters stop, and it is worth understanding before the three month period in § 77b StGB becomes the pressing question.

For the wider set of German defamation rules see the defamation law overview, and for the general guide to German law see Germany.

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