The analysis of the legal status of satire and satirical cartoon in Germany as well as the study of some court decisions enable us to size up the legislator’s difficulties in defining these two genres and in establishing a clear legislation. The number of court actions varies in time and shows an increase in recent years owing to the number of private complaints. These juridical data do not enable us, however, to apprehend the global context in which these complaints are lodged and these satirical creations produced and received. German satirists and cartoonists must take into account the tolerance threshold of German public opinion regarding graphical virulence and must willy-nilly consent to a self-censorship that is generally more severe than in France.