German court rejects bid to remove church’s antisemitic pig sculpture

Plaintiff Michael Duellmann now wants to take case to country’s highest court

The sculpture adorns the wall of Town Church in Wittenberg, Germany (AP)

A German federal court has refused a Jewish man’s request for an antisemitic medieval statue to be taken down from a church in eastern Germany.

On Tuesday, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected a case brought by Michael Duellmann, who said the recently-restored relief in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, was "a defamation of and insult to the Jewish people".

The 700-year-old “Judensau” sculpture, which adorns the outside wall of a church where Martin Luther once preached, depicts a rabbi lifting the tail of a pig - an animal deemed unclean in Judaism - and other figures sucking its teats.