The Berlin gallery owner Johann König wanted to have the novel “Inner City Death” banned and failed

On Tuesday, the press chamber of the Hamburg regional court rejected the Berlin gallery owner couple König's application for a temporary injunction against the novel "Innerstädtischer Tod" by Christoph Peters without a hearing. The Berliner Zeitung has received the relevant ruling. Lena and Johann König have thus failed in their attempt to temporarily prohibit the Luchterhand literary publishers from distributing the book or individual passages from it.

The chamber assumes that the König couple are recognizable to at least some of the readership due to the similarities between them and the fictional characters Konrad and Eva-Kristin Raspe described in the application. However, according to the Hamburg lawyers, this is not enough to assume a violation of personal rights. The balance between the applicants' personal rights and artistic freedom is in favor of the Luchterhand Literature Publishing House. The applicants can appeal against this decision.

According to the publisher, König's lawyers from the Berlin media law firm Schertz Bergmann were explicitly informed by the chair of the press chamber before the decision that she did not see any violation of the applicants' personal rights. The publisher concludes from the fact that the König couple did not withdraw the application for a ban that the case will keep the courts busy for some time and will be the starting point for a process through the courts.

The Luchterhand-Literaturverlag and the author are probably rubbing their hands

The main character of the novel is the Berlin gallery owner Konrad Raspe, who sexually harasses women and also behaves in a morally questionable manner. Johann König was exposed to MeToo allegations in 2022, the year in which the novel is set, and was able to successfully defend himself against the dissemination of some of these allegations in a lawsuit against the weekly newspaper Die Zeit .

The Luchterhand literary publisher announced that the author Christoph Peters and the publisher are looking forward to a possible further procedure with great confidence, as this would provide an opportunity to further demonstrate to an interested public the impressive literary quality of the author and his oeuvre and, above all, the great importance of artistic freedom as a guarantee for literary creation. A statement that makes you literally see the publisher and author rubbing their hands together. Public interest in Peters' novel, which was published in September, has certainly increased since King's attempt to ban it.