German activists pretended to deliver a far-right party’s election fliers
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I was thinking this was probably going to be a slam dunk for the AfD. However, if no money had yet exchanged hands, and there was no contract, and only an oral agreement, then this might be a case where the little details are really going to matter.
In all likelihood, the non-existent service is going to be punished. An oral agreement is still an agreement, and they did receive merchandise, which could arguably have value.
However, I would expect this one to settle out of court, away from criminal liabilities, because otherwise it may drag on for years.
Germany has what you might call graduated protection. The law protects minors more than adults and adults more than organisations with professional bookkeepers and lawyers and all that. If you deceive a 15-year-old by stalling and never signing anything, the judge will look fiercely at you, an adult somewhat less so, if you manage to waste Aldi's time and advertising material the judge may well tell Aldi that it should have been more careful and at least glanced at https://www.flyerservice-hahn.de/impressum .
Lying and stealing to ‘own the Nazis’
In most ethical systems the ends don’t justify the means, because you can justify anything this way. Will be interesting to see the backlash (and whether they repeat learning this common saying).
Der Zweck heiligt nicht die Mittel