Just call Hitler "Heiler", "My chancellor", remove the moustache and, hey, you get around German censorship. Oh, zose Jermans and their double standards.

Hannah Arendt

The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.

Hannah Arendt

Techdirt has a post titled

The Price Wolfenstein 2 Had To Pay To Get Around Germany's Anti-Nazi Laws Was Removing A Mustache

from the yes-that-mustache dept

The last time we talked about Germany's Strafgesetzbuch law, specifically section 86a that prohibits the display of Nazi symbols, iconography, or historical figures with few exceptions, was when Ubisoft accidentally sent the country versions of a South Park video game chock full of swastikas. I feel much the same today about the law as I did then: I get why the law was created, but it's probably time for it to be retired. While the law does make room for Nazi symbols to be displayed for the purposes of art and education, too often those exceptions are either not actually adhered to in real-world examples, while those that might be able to fit their work within those exceptions don't bother trying, too chilled by the law that limits their speech. Coupling that along with the simple fact that German citizens who really want to see Nazi symbols don't have to work particularly hard to circumvent the law resolves the whole matter as being somewhat silly.

And it produces silly results. (full post here)

Newsweek:

In Germany, the game looks a little bit different. Hitler’s iconic mustache—the previously popular toothbrush style that fell out of fashion after the war because of its unshakable association with the brutal Nazi dictator—has been removed, according to a video posted on YouTube by Censored Gaming that compares two versions of the same scene. (Spoiler alert: Elements of the scene will be described in the next paragraph.)

In this particular part of the game, Hitler walks into a casting session of American actors who are auditioning for a part in a Nazi-made film. Not only is his mustache gone, but the insignia on his robe is different. It’s difficult to make out in the video, but according to Kotaku, the German version removes Hitler’s initials. Instead of a black swastika in its usual place at the center of a giant Nazi flag hanging in the background, there’s a warped-triangle symbol. The mustache-less Hitler isn’t calledmein führer in the German version but rather mein kanzler, meaning “my chancellor,” or mein heiler, meaning “my healer.” It also replaces exclamations of Heil Hitler! with chants of mein kanzler.

Polygon

The swastika has been replaced with that made-up, three-pronged symbol that some stateside gamers may have seen in trailers and marketing. Bethesda Softworks has used it rather than develop separate trailers or risk having one with the wrong imagery used over in Europe. (In the past, the use of licensed music has also meant  careful tiptoeing around the presence of Nazi symbology.)

Fans are ripping the bowdlerized dialogue and symbology.

“They should’ve just put a paper bag on his head with ‘Not hitler’ written on it,” said one YouTube commenter.

“They deprived us of a great story by removing the amazing voice acting (both English and German) and replacing it with a low quality dub that changes the narrative into a nonsensical, patronising mess and then having the gall to offer it to us thinking we wouldn't notice these obvious changes,” said one Redditor, who said he is German.

Then there is Kotaku. But back to Polygon where they write:

If Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus was going to launch in Germany, and it did, some measure of censorship was to be expected. Nazi symbology and references aren’t just frowned upon there, they’re flat illegal.

Except, that they are NOT! They are welcome when they serve a purpose. This here was posted on BENTO, a youth website, of that yellow press, fake news magazine SPIEGEL.

It is an anti AfD post against a political party that managed to garner some 13% of the votes in the elections last September. It would be quite a stretch to call 13% of Germans Nazis. Yet any mud that could be gathered was thrown at them by the press.

Oh, you can even deny the Holocaust with the backing of Germany's Constitutional Court as long as you are in a small group!

Germany's ban on denying the Holocaust is first of all

• an attack on free speech, 
• a hypocritic instrumentalization of history and 
• a convenient cover-up to achieve this:

"Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing."

Hannah Arendt

Besides, German tv is chock-full of so-called NS documentaries every week!