Someone ask the judge if he is "glad" that Hitler is dead?

Schadenfreude, the enjoyment of others' suffering, may be a famously German concept, but it is apparently not a feeling that many Germans aspire to. The political and public fallout following Chancellor Angela Merkel's statement on Monday that she was "glad" Osama bin Laden had been killed was among the most hotly debated topics in the German media this week.

Politicians, including those within her own center-right coalition, said that no death was cause for celebration, and reproved the remark as un-Christian and vengeful.

But Hamburg judge Heinz Uthmann went even further. He alleges that the chancellor's statement was nothing short of illegal, and filed a criminal complaint against Merkel midweek, the daily Hamburger Morgenpost reported Friday.

"I am a law-abiding citizen and as a judge, sworn to justice and law," the 54-year-old told the paper, adding that Merkel's words were "tacky and undignified."

In his two-page document, Uthmann, a judge for 21 years, cites section 140 of the German Criminal Code, which forbids the "rewarding and approving" of crimes. In this case, Merkel endorsed a "homicide," Uthmann claimed. The violation is punishable by up to three years' imprisonment or a fine.

"For the daughter of a Christian pastor, the comment is astonishing and at odds with the values of human dignity, charity and the rule of law," Uthmann told the newspaper.

As in the US, there are people just waiting to jump down any prominent person's throat for uttering anything that can be construed as politically incorrect. The judge could care less that Merkel is the daughter of a Christian pastor. We know this because Germany is one of the least religious countries in Western Europe. And since when did "tacky and undignified" speech become a crime?

Sixty five years ago, Germans made a habit of "tacky and undignified" speech and added exterminating Jews to that crime, as well as deliberately starting aggressive war, murdering POW's, jailing people for their political views, and slavishly agreeing with and following one of the greatest mass murderers in history.