German Gardener Sets Up Christmas Tree Illegally, Now a Convicted Felon and Ordered to Pay 3,000 Euros
Another day, another absurd occurrence in the best Germany of all times: everything traditional and Christian is under multi-directional attack by leftists aided and abetted by courts and legacy media
Prelim: this is one of the more insane stories, and it speaks volumes about the advanced state of decay of what once used to be European civilisation. I saw the story at the time, considered it briefly to be way too absurd—and now I must, finally, report on it as there were ‘new’ developments.
In what follows, recourse is made to one short introductory overview, which appeared on the website of state broadcaster NDR in late November 2024, followed by a longer piece that appeared last week in Die Welt.
As always, translations, emphases, and [snark] mine.
Nov. 2023: Gardener Illegally Puts Up Christmas Tree in Childcare Centre, Gets Fined 3,000 Euros
Via [state broadcaster] NRD, 19 Nov. 2024 [source]
In December 2023, a gardener put up a Christmas tree on the grounds of a Hamburg daycare centre without prior agreement. However, the daycare centre had actually decided against a tree and filed a complaint for trespassing. The 53-year-old now has to pay a fine.
The public prosecutor’s office and the court had repeatedly offered to conclude the proceedings with a penalty order and the payment of 500 euros [so, somehow, I understand this to mean both the prosecution and the judge considered the case quite…borderline: why did they prosecute instead of throwing out the case as frivolous?]. However, the gardener refused [well, at least one German with convictions] and made a big show of it at the Hamburg district court on Tuesday: a man in a Christmas tree costume jumped around there, several supporters wore T-shirts with the slogan ‘No tree is illegal’. [that is translated as it was written in the piece, i.e., in a way that insinuates that the gardener had anything to do with this (which he may very well have), but either way, this is next-level trolling and must be commended; below, I reproduce the picture that accompanies the short NDR piece; the man in the white beanie is the accused ‘perpetrator™’; note the supporters’ slogans, ‘no tree is illegal’, which is also awesome in light of the flooding of German cities with Moslem ‘refugees’]
Sentence: 3,000 Euros Fine
Unimpressed by this, the Hamburg-Mitte district court sentenced the man to pay a fine of 3,000 euros, as he had placed the Christmas tree on the fenced-in daycare centre grounds. If he had placed the tree in front of the fence, there would have been no trial, emphasised a court spokeswoman [note that this entire ‘case’ is about property rights, and I do understand, on a very obvious level, as to why the daycare centre filed the complaint (see below for more)].
Case Made Headlines Nationwide
The case made headlines across Germany a year ago: the daycare centre management in Hamburg’s Lokstedt district decided against a Christmas tree in order not to exclude any children in the interests of religious freedom [in 2020, the largest political parties in that ward were—the Social Democrats and the Greens at 34 and 23 per cent, respectively]. However, Advent calendars and Christmas decorations were present at the daycare centre. The gardener now has one week to appeal against the fine
Intermission
So far, so expectable: a majority red™-green™ ward whose inhabitants determine to exclude one religion in ‘the interests of religious freedom’.
Here’s a bit more about what kind of ‘crime’ the gardener did (via the Münchener Merkur, 19 Nov. 2024):
The 53-year-old managing director of a garden plant supplier had secretly erected a large Christmas tree on the fenced-in grounds of a daycare centre in the Hamburg district of Lokstedt on a December night in 2023 and placed presents underneath it. The daycare centre filed a criminal complaint for trespassing.
Team and Children Decided Against the Tree Beforehand
It had previously explained to the parents that the team had decided together with the children against a Christmas tree in the interests of religious freedom. The aim was not to exclude any child or their faith. Christmas decorations for the festive season—such as Advent calendars, wreaths and elf decorations [note the creeping commercialisation via US media: elves have nothing to do with German traditions here]—were nevertheless put up in the daycare centre, as the daycare management emphasised. Several media outlets had reported on this. The reason for the decision against the tree was sufficiently known to the accused, the judge continued…
[The 53-year old accused] criticised the fact that such a good deed would end up in court. In addition, the gate was not locked and there was no corresponding sign, the lawyer continued. He claimed that the newspaper reports known to the gardener only showed that the daycare centre lacked the funds for such a tree. He did not see any trespassing; basically, putting up the tree was comparable to posting unwanted advertising mail, the lawyer argued further.
I remember this ‘incident’ from legacy media reporting, and they were at least ambiguous in terms of the background (the alleged lack of funds on part of the daycare centre), if memory serves.
Still, note the omission that the daycare centre’s garden door was unlocked—and then it becomes logically quite strained to argue for trespassing. I mean, you leave your front door open over night, you kinda can’t claim bad faith here.
Speaking of bad faith, what kind of society have we become that a sane (?) person working at the daycare centre upon coming to work that day gets so agitated that he or she files a police report over a Christmas tree and decorations?
And with these considerations in mind, let’s find out what happened last week in the appeals proceedings.
Christmas Tree Erected in Front of Daycare Centre—Trial Against Gardener Enters Next Round
Out of consideration for non-Christian children, a Hamburg daycare centre has decided not to put up a Christmas tree. This prompted a gardener to carry out a cloak-and-dagger operation [orig. Nacht-und-Nebel-Aktion]. Does he have to pay a fine?
Via Die Welt, 12 March 2025 [source (paywalled); archived]
The dispute over a secretly erected Christmas tree in front of a Hamburg daycare centre continues. The Hamburg Regional Court is now dealing with the question of whether the erection of the tree on St Nicholas’ Day 2023 was a well-intentioned surprise or an action against the express will of the centre.
‘It was simply a positive action with no ulterior motives’, assured the gardener accused of trespassing. His company from the Pinneberg district has done this kind of thing before and once even delivered a Christmas tree to homeless people [huhum, could it be that the accused did this out of, you know, charitable believes deemed no longer acceptable by the present juste milieu? Note that, so far, legacy media reporting™ has avoided discussing the gardener’s motive, which, to this writer at least, appear crystal-clear].
The criminal chamber [orig. Strafkammer] at the district court has to decide on this, but first wants to hear a witness at a continuation hearing on 26 March. The employee of the tree nursery, who is responsible for the company’s social media activities, is to be questioned about the motivation for the Christmas tree campaign.
Daycare Centre Board Member: Chained Tree Caused Fear
‘It’s not a nice gift, it was very frightening’, said a board member of the private daycare centre provider. The tree had been chained up on the grounds of the centre and the caretaker had had to remove it with bolt cutters [very scary; next time you want to scare someone at Halloween, consider a Christmas tree]. The 46-year-old admitted that the parents of the day-care centre children wanted a tree [oh, look at that].
However, the management of the centre and the children had decided against it [if my kid was there, I’d file a complaint vs. child abuse: there’s a reason children at that age are legally incompetent, and it’s very much reprehensible on part of the daycare management to use them as human shields]. Nevertheless, there had been other Christmas decorations. The director of the day-care centre foundation did not want to accept a reconciliation offer from the accused to withdraw the criminal charges in exchange for a donation of plants [see, this is the best Germany of all times: get a free Christmas tree—that the parents would have liked—file a complaint; at the same time, point fingers vs. the ‘perpetrator’ while refusing all reconciliation offers to make a stand for ‘what we believe in™’—and now we’ll turn to what has happened last week].
Dispute over Christmas Tree in Front of Hamburg Daycare Centre: Court Changes Verdict
A gardener from Hamburg wanted to do something good for children and secretly put up a Christmas tree on the grounds of a daycare centre. But they didn’t want one—now he has been found guilty again. However, the judgement was changed upon appeal.
Via Mopo.de, 26 March 2025 [source]
In the trial over the secret erection of a Christmas tree in front of a Hamburg daycare centre, a gardener has also been found guilty of trespassing on appeal. In the hearing before the Regional Court, however, the judgement of the Hamburg district court from November was amended, according to a court spokeswoman. The 54-year-old was then sentenced to a suspended fine and must pay an additional 2,400 euros to an organisation for children as a condition of probation…[re-read this: put up a Christmas tree illegally, become a felon: can you believe that?].
Last November, the local court sentenced the 54-year-old to a fine of 3,000 euros. The man appealed against this. The defendant now also has time to lodge an appeal within a week [no more mention of the above-related details, such as the desire on part of the parents to have a Christmas tree, daycare centre management’s decision—(ab)using the children as human shields—against it, as well as the latter’s refusal to accept any kind of settlement, incl. the gardener’s offer to remove the tree and replace it with other plants].
The public prosecutor’s office had offered to discontinue the penalty order from August 2024 in return for a payment of 500 euros, which the gardener refused. The case therefore went to court. (dpa/mp) [see what I mean? The framing is as obvious as it has, I would submit, ulterior motives].
Bottom Lines
This is quite surreal, isn’t it?
Pray tell, dear readers, are you in any way, shape, or form surprised?
I mean, this is kinda the same judiciary that conformed, during the Covid Mania, to such utterly depraved degrees as to prosecute and sentence a sitting judge because she had permitted her father, a Lutheran pastor, to administer last rites during a ‘lockdown’ (which, incidentally, wasn’t forbidden):
As to why legacy media reporting is that skewed (piss-poor), well, we also know why that is the case: the make-up, in general, of legacy media practitioners is super-woke, far-left (Social-Democratic) and very far-left (Greens):
To this writer, what’s going on here is another front in the concerted attack by these left/far-left vanguardists vs. faith, family, and tradition—note that the parents who put their children into this daycare centre wanted a tree but, according to some media reports, the daycare lacked funds.
Then the gardener shows up over night, puts up a tree to cheer up the children—and gets sued as all the gardener’s settlement offers are rejected.
They were rejected by the same daycare centre staffers who refused all reconciliation offers from the accused.
What else is there to note but—no justice no peace.
At this point, it seems that the German régime is as dead-set as it is firmly entrenched, the crushing defeat at the recent elections™ notwithstanding.
The lesson here is obvious: they™ won’t change, no matter what.
Once this régime runs out of mileage, there will be ‘weeks when decades happen’.
The moral of the story is that although bureaucrats hate Christmas, they hate even more when someone accomplishes a thing without their involvement.
Clown world!