Thomas Fischer | Accurate legal expert

Thomas Fischer holds a doctorate and a professorship and is a ubiquitous expert in German law – and beyond. In his recent column , "Hunger as a Weapon," for Spiegel Online, he takes issue with Israel's actions in the Gaza war. Fischer argues that the government has "long since exceeded all limits of proportionality" and is using hunger as a means of war against the civilian population. They are being "driven back and forth like rats in a cage, terrorized, and cut off from vital supplies."

The wording is particularly displeasing to those who, even after tens of thousands of civilian deaths – including many children and young people – and 19 months of war, still speak of Israel's necessary "self-defense." With the headline "The Schoolmaster ," the "Jüdische Allgemeine" newspaper dismissed Fischer's well-informed (and Karl Marx-quoting) criticism of Israel as self-righteous. However, the confusingly written article contains hardly any arguments – but instead a wealth of accusations and innuendo.

Fischer, born in 1953 and raised in the northwestern Sauerland region, rose from a criminal judge in Bavaria to presiding judge at the Federal Court of Justice after graduating from high school and subsequently declaring himself a conscientious objector to military service to be a sought-after professor of criminal law. As a Ministerial Councilor in the Saxon State Ministry of Justice, he also headed a department for the criminal investigation of the SED regime. Fischer is best known to the legal community as the editor of the standard commentary on the Criminal Code.

The professor has been in early retirement since 2017, but still works for a law firm and as an honorary professor at the University of Würzburg, and he also writes controversial columns. He is also reportedly a member of Amnesty International. Nevertheless, in 2023, Fischer advocated for climate activists to receive prison sentences without parole for sticking posters on the streets.

In the "Jüdische Allgemeine," published by the Central Council of Jews, it's not clear exactly where Fischer is alleged to be wrong in his column. His call for Germany and Europe to take a more decisive stand against the Israeli government is causing offense—a first step taken this week when Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) declared that Israel's attacks against the civilian population "can no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas terrorism."

The German debate about the Gaza war has thus begun to shift. Even the short-lived shitstorm directed against Fischer following the "Jüdische Allgemeine" report cannot prevent this.