Remember 'Correctiv' and their 'story' about deportations? Alt-media alleges domestic security services are behind it--and the gov't won't answer questions
Now, new insights are emerging, the most important of which being the allegation, made by alt-media outlet Tichy’s Einblick a few days ago, that the entire ‘story’ resulted from a sting operation run by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz, Germany’s FBI, FSB, or MI5 domestic spying agency, or, more aptly, its internal security services).
We already knew that on 17 Jan. 2024, the Berliner Ensemble staged a drama version, with actors reading statements from some participants. Where would the actors get these transcripts?
Of course, if this was a secretive conspiratorial meeting, why would they have transcripts? It’s a good and valid question, but one that raises more troubling issues, such as: did a (partially gov’t-funded, partially NGO-funded) ‘media outlet’ record the conversations? If so, it would be illegal, to say the least.
There was a side-bruahahaha about Correctiv’s ‘reporting’ in the past two days, and it revolved around deputy editor-in-chief Anette Dowideit appeared on the Sunday morning talkshow. As recounted by NIUS (here and in the following, my translation and emphases),
following Correctiv's report on a private meeting in Potsdam at which the mass deportation of German citizens with a migration background was allegedly planned, deputy editor-in-chief Anette Dowideit suddenly distanced herself from the term ‘deportation’.
The term ‘deportation’ was used by many other media outlets
The partly state-funded media did not use this term: ‘We didn't talk about deportation either. It was then used by those who interpreted it’, she said on Sunday in the ARD Presse Club. The truth is: Correctiv itself created the deportation analogy that so many media outlets have adopted.
Ms. Dowideit has blocked numerous Twitter/X followers who asked her about this.
We summarise thus: Correctiv, a partially state-funded outlet, has alleged ‘secret plans’ of ‘deportation’ (using these exact words); actors have staged a ‘play’ by reading from alleged transcripts.
Questions about both the sting op itself as well as the words used were raised and aren’t going away, which brings us to what’s currently happening, thankfully summarised by the invaluable Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Here’s what their Berlin correspondent Marc Felix Sarrao wrote yesterday:
The German domestic intelligence service usually refrains from commenting on media pieces about its work. Now the agency is making a rare exception.
The German domestic intelligence service has rejected the claim that it was behind the much-discussed report on the ‘secret meeting’ in Potsdam. When asked by the NZZ whether the agency had passed on any knowledge about it—for example through intelligence service recordings—to the outlet Correctiv, a spokeswoman for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said on Monday [29 Jan. 2024]: ‘No, no such disclosure has taken place.’ Such a thing is also ‘not provided for by law’. The question of whether the service had known about the meeting and the participants in advance remained unanswered. As a matter of principle, nothing is said about ‘such circumstances’…
Roland Tichy, publisher of the magazine Tichys Einblick, announced on Friday evening on the platform X (formerly Twitter) that there was ‘official confirmation’ that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had ‘bugged the Potsdam meeting and possibly passed it on to Correctiv’. However, there is no such confirmation in the article he linked to. In a conversation with journalists, [Verfassungsschutz head] Haldenwang said that his office had known ‘very precisely’ about the meeting and the invitees in advance, according to the article. There is no mention of wiretapping or even passing on data in this context. These claims were made by Tichy’s editorial team, citing unnamed ‘security insiders’.
What did the German Gov’t Know?
Courtesy of Mario Gallina over at Tichys Einblick, here’s what the German gov’t said:
Correctiv accuses Tichys Einblick of spreading misinformation in this regard [so, the pot calls the kettle black]. The involvement of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and its collaboration with a supposedly independent ‘research portal’ would ultimately disavow not only the German state, but also German journalism. It would be a mixture of the Spiegel affair and Watergate. Incidentally, this no longer has to mean anything today: just as the Berlin election and the Agora affair were talked down, this incident could also be talked down.
Renner wanted to know from the federal government when it (or subordinate agencies) had received information about the ‘strategy meeting of members of the right-wing extremist scene’. Hahn asked a similar question: ‘What information does the federal government have about Correctiv's research into the meeting that took place in November?’
Clear questions. Clear answers would dispel any doubts. But both MPs received the same answer from State Secretary Mahmut Özdemir. For reasons of transparency, it shall be quoted here in full:
‘After careful consideration, the Federal Government has come to the conclusion that an answer to the question about the state of knowledge regarding the event on 25 November 2023 in Potsdam cannot be given due to conflicting overriding interests of the state.
Answering the question as to whether or when the Federal Government and its subordinate authorities had information on the specific event in question could allow conclusions to be drawn about the Office for the Protection of the Constitution's state of knowledge and, if applicable, the intelligence service's methods and working methods, which could permanently impair the service’s future intelligence gathering due to corresponding defence strategies or even make it impossible in individual cases.
If a question—as in the case of the enquiry on which this response is based—relates to a specific event with a definable group of participants and a definable group of persons who had prior knowledge of a specific event, a response could always lead to conclusions being drawn about information that requires secrecy. This threat of lasting impairment of the ability to function could be a serious disadvantage for the effective fulfilment of the tasks of the security authorities and thus for the interests of the Federal Republic of Germany.’
Not exactly a full-blown denial, if that’s even the right word here (which I doubt).
Here’s what Mr. Gallina infers:
The Federal Government neither wants to affirm nor deny. But at this (double) moment it would have had the opportunity to say quite clearly: No, there was no involvement of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and there was no prior knowledge. Knowing full well that should it come to light that this was not the case, they are endeavouring to use the standard formulation that cannot fall on their feet. In other words, if the Federal Government had known nothing, it could have presented it as such.
So there is only one conclusion to be drawn: the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was obviously involved and the state secret is now being guarded like the apple of an eye because the ‘conclusions about the methods’ could reveal unpleasant truths about the local constitutional order.
Change my mind, eh?
Bottom Lines: Poetry and Truth
There are two main issues at-hand here, one specific and the other more general; both raise enormous questions whose importance relate to the post-WW2 order.
As regards the specific issue, the government’s equivocation isn’t exactly re-assuring. The widespread diffusion of what was allegedly said at that meeting on 25 Nov. 2023, incl. the staging by the Berliner Ensemble on 17 Jan. 2024, is highly suspicious, to say the least. Where, exactly, would the transcripts of the meeting come from?
As Cora Knoblauch ‘reported’ for state broadcaster RBB, this staging was
an unusual mixture of reading, scene acting, and commentary on people and actors. The actors re-enact key scenes from the secret meeting, a kind of re-enactment, commenting on the role of the respective speaker and their biography…Correctiv does not reproduce the exact wording of any of the speeches. At least the actors claim that the transcripts of what was said was written from memory and that some of them are fictional.
[Caption] How much insight the journalists really had into the event or whether they were even able to plant a mole at the dining table in the Hotel Adlon or even a bug remains an open question on this evening. The fact that, among other things, a camera hidden in a wristwatch was used for filming, this James Bond-style coup, is shared with the audience with a wink.
If that’s not bad enough, it gets worse in the subsequent paragraph by Ms. Knoblauch:
In order to avoid legal complaints and charges, each performer emphasises that they are actor playing the role of a participant of the meeting. There are some slapstick moments in the evening, for example when Constanze Becker says: ‘My name is Gerrit Huy, AfD member of the Bundestag. Oh no, I'm an actress who plays Gerrit Huy and sits in the Bundestag.’The actress playing Gerrit Huy then goes on to talk about deportations rather than cloudy remigration, a euphemism that some of the round table participants apparently consider acceptable.
Full disclosure—I didn’t watch the performance, I read the official transcript. It does hold that there are recordings made with a wristwatch (p. 13) and notes that a sauna boat on the nearby lake was used to hide photo team (p. 14). On p. 21, there is this passage, allegedly said by the actor pretending to be Gernot Möring:
For all those who don't know me yet: I've been involved since I was six years old. And I don't care what you mean by that—right-wing, alternative, National Socialist, I don't care, really.
I enjoy the privilege that my parents were also with them [inferred is: the Nazis, of course]. My four siblings are also with them. Well, and then there's my wife, Astrid—hello, my darling—and Astrid, she's with them too. As are our four children. But that's not all. All four of our children are still active! And then we're even luckier that our children-in-law are also all active. That's not something we take for granted and I really appreciate it.
I was a dentist myself. Before that, I was a dental technician. And everyone always thought: this is what the stage character Gernot Mörig was meant to do, this is his life's work. But they were wrong. All of them. Because my mission in life is the family and my mission in life is: the people [orig. das Volk].
(Pause.)
What we do here is networking. We are a circle of sophisticated fascists.
I’ll leave it to your judgment to discern what is fake and what is ‘true’ to the extent that it was allegedly said by the real Mr. Mörig at the meeting. I’ll restrict myself to noting that the official transcript nowhere adds a ‘disclaimer’ about this—essential—distinction.
It is, therefore, impossible to distinguish those parts that were allegedly said from those that are fictional.
No court would accept that kind of evidence, provided any standards existed; and neither should anyone.
And this notion brings me to the bigger implication that is an even larger taboo: irrespective of the backtracking and the shameful lies peddled by the government’s supporters, we note that there’s no transcript of what took place.
Given the fickle nature of human memory, it appears highly unlikely that the precise statements in the staged version are even remotely true; that is, perhaps the Office for the Protection of the Constitution recorded the meeting (they had the means and, due to foreknowledge, also the opportunity) and then shared it with Correctiv to support the gov’t (motive).
If so, it’s extremely illegal and would merely reveal levels of corruption that, frankly, cannot possibly be cleared up easily, if at-all.
Finally, the widespread connections with the original Wannsee Conference also point to one other crucial aspect that so far (to my knowledge) have been overlooked: there is but one document—minutes—of the infamous 1942 meeting (see here, here, and here). Unlike what many readers may think, perhaps because you watched the 1984 or the 2001 movies, there is no document that relates, exactly, what those present at the Wannsee Conference actually said.
Yet, we are told to believe that what was presented by Correctiv and the Berliner Ensemble are verbatim statements (although no transcripts or recordings allegedly exists) based on original and more recent ‘new reporting’ by Correctiv that also includes explicit references to tone, meaning, and sarcastic overtones, e.g.,
Mario Müller is not ashamed of his criminal record, on the contrary: he brags about it.
‘My name is Mario Müller’, he introduces himself at the secret meeting, ‘I'm a violent neo-Nazi.’ He says this in an ironic tone, according to sources, and immediately ridicules it: that only applies if you believe left-wing ‘denunciation portals’, he says. And of course no one here does, at this meeting near Potsdam, which Correctiv uncovered last week and has been reporting on the consequences in the live ticker ever since.
I’ll stop here, and I shall leave it to your judgement if you consider these ‘statements’ and Correctiv’s ‘reporting’ authentic.
To me, it’s very fishy, and if it comes out, which seems likely, that Correctiv’s ‘reporters’ recorded parts of the meeting, it has the potential to bring down the gov’t.
If it comes out, which I consider plausible, that Correctiv is merely laundering the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s intel, it has the potential to bring down more than the ‘just’ the gov’t.
This on the "migrants on strike"-level of stupidity, almost to the "forty year old men are children"-rapeugee idiocy perpetrated by swedish media in 2015.
This on the "migrants on strike"-level of stupidity, almost to the "forty year old men are children"-rapeugee idiocy perpetrated by swedish media in 2015.