Soros Withdraws Funding From Europe Causing Howls from Countless NGOs

As 'Open Society Foundations' Funding Dries Up, Questions Emerge About Soros' Revised Spending Priorities

Several things related to NGO funding were revealed last week. As readers know, this is an important, if under-reported topic, and I have been working on it, too.

Today’s bruahahaha moment comes to us courtesy of independent journalist Boris Reitschuster who has picked up the baton. Today we’ll look yet again into the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung and ponder the question what is Alex Soros going to do now that ‘Open Society Foundations’ (OSF) is downscaling, if not ceasing, its European operations.

For background into the ‘NGO’ in question, please see here:

Banning Books and Combatting 'Hate', New Public Management Shows its True Colours in Germany

Translations and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines.

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What a Bummer for the Amadeu Foundation: Donations are Coming In, but the Victims are Gone. Would that Mean the End of their Business Model? No Way!

By Boris Reitschuster, 1 Sept. 2023 [Source]

Critics accuse the Amadeu Antonio Foundation of doing the same business in the Federal Republic of Germany that secret services do in authoritarian states: it whips up pro-government sentiment and denounces dissidents. The founder of this foundation, Anetta Kahane, already defamed people with different opinions as ‘right-wing’ as an ‘informal employee’ (Informeller Mitarbeiter, or IM) of the state security services in the GDR. Today, the supposed ‘fight against the right’, which now includes virtually all government critics who do not come from the far left, is the foundation’s business model. Formally, it operates as a ‘non-governmental organisation’, but it receives money from the taxpayer and is thus decisively co-financed by the state. Kahane herself comes from old red ‘GDR nobility’: her father was a foreign correspondent for the party newspaper Neues Deutschland.

The foundation is involved wherever the—[barely] hidden—ideological legacy of the GDR is at stake, most prominently in the fight for red-green ideology and against its enemies. Thus, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation was immediately on the spot when allegations [of improper sexual conduct] were made against Till Lindemann, singer of the group ‘Rammstein’. Rammstein is considered politically unreliable and is anathema to red-green culture warriors with their whole habitus. And thus it is likely that they were a thorn in the side of those responsible for the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.

They promptly launched a fundraising campaign for those ‘affected’. In an appeal, the foundation wrote: ‘You are (actually) a big Rammstein fan and were happy to meet the band? But you felt uncomfortable and did things you didn’t want to do? You’ve experienced assaultive behaviour by band members or their team? You are not alone! Here you can find information about support options in your situation.’

The campaign website continues: ‘With the campaign “How much does 1 euro help?” we have collected donations together with Jasmina Kuhnke, Nora Tschirner, Carolin Kebekus, Rezo, Roger Reckless, Micha Fritz, Jany Tempel, MeTooGermany and Jannik Rienhoff [loads of Germany’s solid and dependable left activists lending their name] to support people who have allegedly experienced assaultive behaviour by Till Lindemann, Rammstein, or their team and who are suffering financial burdens in this context.’

In total, more than 826,000 euros in donations were collected, as Judith Rahner from the foundation told RBB. According to the report, the money was intended to help potential victims of abuse by Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann with legal help. The report continues: ‘The foundation also contacts alleged victims who have made their experiences public in social media’, explained Rahner, who heads a specialist unit for gender issues and group-related misanthropy at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.’

No Allegations

And now this: the public prosecutor’s office in Berlin has dropped the investigation against Lindemann, just like the one in Lithuania (see here). The allegation that Lindemann and [his alleged partner-in-crime] Makeeva, who allegedly supplied him with women, had committed sexual offences and violated the narcotics law had not been confirmed, the public prosecutor’s office told the Berliner Zeitung.

The foundation will now probably absolve itself by saying that one of the goals of its fundraising campaign—psychological help for potential victims—is still relevant. Whether 826,000 euros are really necessary for this in a country where psychological care is also covered by health insurance and health insurance companies is questionable.

So the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, together with its semi-celebrity supporters like the ARD activist Kebekus [who spewed forth ‘hate’ on state TV], are now quite naked on the stage. The business model of promoting red-green ideology at all costs has worked wonderfully here financially—only the suitable object has virtually disappeared due to the decision of the public prosecutor’s office. Critics had suspected from the beginning that the foundation wanted to present as many victims as possible at any price in order to further its political agenda.

The fund-raising campaign is almost emblematic of the absurdity of the red-green ideological activism that is omnipresent in the Federal Republic today and is financed with taxpayer money.

The question remains: what is going to happen with the raised funds?

Certainly, new victims will be found that fit the ideological agenda even better and that will further drive up sentiments.

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Old Habits Die Hard

While I personally think the above piece has some (argumentative) weaknesses—the dropping of the prosecutor’s investigation is explicitly not tantamount to there being no possible victims—NGO funding is a hugely important issue.

Earlier this summer, my older brother told me that these institutions are basically lobby groups that are inevitable the way our ‘system’ functions today.

Granted, lobby groups are o.k., but they should all, and transparently so, declare their funding so that people can make up their mind about their trustworthiness. Given the particularly egregious position of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in German domestic politics, it is very much important that its founder, Ms. Kahane, once worked for the Stasi, the Communist ‘Ministry for State Security’, where her task was to rat out ‘unreliables’. Old habits die hard.

Furthermore, ‘journalists’ should properly point out these affiliations and funding streams, yet legacy media is loath to do so, and this is perhaps due to the inappropriate, if not incestuous, relationship between highly concentrated media conglomerates (in terms of media ownership, the situation in Germany is about as problematic as it is the US), taxpayer subsidies, and ‘grants’ by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or others (here’s looking at you, Der Spiegel) testify on a daily basis.

A Side-Note on #metoo-esque Shenanigans

Instead, the ‘fourth estate’ has degenerated so much that there is hardly space for ‘muck-raking’ journalism to breath. Hence, the #metoo-esque shenanigans against Rammstein, which, by the way, ran their course in the usual manner:

Many years after any ‘incident’, someone ‘goes public’ with allegations of misconduct. When this happens, legacy media is lightning-fast to pick up said allegation, with virtually all legacy media outlets repeating these allegations. Pressure is built up, police and state prosecutors get involved, and politicians as well as other ‘thought leaders’ voice their ‘grave concerns’.

Problem is—and I don’t mean to downplay or belittle anything experienced by victims of (sexual) assault—there are laws on the books, which typically come with things such as ‘statute of limitations’ (Verjährungsfristen in German). These indicate that once a certain number of years elapsed after any incident (except for capital crimes and particularly heinous acts), no legal action is possible.

This is why ‘cases’ vs. Harvey Weinstein (quite certainly a less-than-honourable character) or Till Lindemann of Rammstein are so problematic, to say nothing about the ‘charges’ vs. Donald Trump or the hearings pertaining to the appointment of (current) Supreme Judge Brett Kavanaugh: if the statute of limitations is exceeded, the concept of ‘rule of law’ indicates that we must not have one set of rules for a particular group while making up stuff as we go along for others.

Mind you, I’m not denying anyone’s experiences here, and there’s literally a billion reasons not to report sexual assault and/or rape to police, ranging from shame to issues of credibility of the claims, to say nothing about the thorny issue of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that one side of the story is factually true.

As an aside, since I work in academia, the ‘the allegation must be believed at any price’ has been very much rampant in my line of work. In the US, faculty typically leaves open the door during office hours as there are several hair-raising accounts (e.g., here) that indicate swift consequences, albeit not of the kind you might imagine.

I recall a conversation, a few years ago, with a Dept. Chair at the Prestigious Ivy League College I was a visiting professor at, who told me about a professor who would chase any skirt of a young woman; by then, said professor was long retired but, as an active octogenarian, had finally been reported by a student. The issue was quickly dealt with in the usual way, i.e., an internal committee (kangaroo court) was convened, the professor received what amounted to a slap on the wrist, and nothing was done. (The following dialogue is my recollection, i.e., while not all phrases occurred in the below manner, they clearly represent the intent of my interlocutor.)

‘Why’, I asked my interlocutor, ‘are these kangaroo courts convened and these issues are covered up in such a fashion? Speaking as a European, that doesn’t sound like proper procedure.’

‘Well’, my interlocutor replied, ‘it is all about optics and showing that we do something lest we loose financial resources.’

‘That Very Prestigious Ivy League College has an admission rate of below 10%, surely, if that inches upwards a notch, there are no financial consequences.’

‘Ah, you don’t understand—this is no what I meant’, my interlocutor replied: ‘some donors might re-allocate their funding.’

I’ll leave you to consider the ‘merits’ of this episode.

Bottom Lines

One question remains: where, by the way, will Soros re-direct his resources?

From The Guardian, we learn the following (my emphases):

In a July email to staff, the OSF management announced a ‘radical redesign to help us deliver more effectively on our mission’. ‘Ultimately, the new approved strategic direction provides for withdrawal and termination of large parts of our current work within the European Union, shifting our focus and allocation of resources to other parts of the world’, it said.

While 40% of the charity’s global staff will be laid off, cuts will be severest in Europe, with the 180 headcount at its Berlin headquarters cut by 80%. Staff remaining in the German capital will mainly administer the foundation’s funds in Switzerland.

Explanation omitted by The Guardian: German wages are significantly lower than Swiss wages, but the latter’s laws and regulations pertaining to ‘foundations’ and the like are legion. Of course, OSF is incorporated in the Canton of Zug, which has Switzerland’s lowest corporate tax brackets.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alex Soros said that while he shared his father’s values, he was ‘more political’. Staffers and grantees said they have been left guessing what that means for the organisation.

No indication is forthcoming as of yet, but it is certainly a good idea to keep OSF’s shifting priorities in mind.