Ulrich Vosgerau is a German lawyer and academic, and has been a legal representative of the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. He was a participant at the now infamous ‘Potsdam meeting’ last November. On January 10th, the state-funded left-wing investigative website Correctiv published an article claiming that members of the AfD, the right-wing Identitarian Movement, and the centre-right CDU party conspired in Potsdam to deport millions of migrants, including those with German citizenship. The article resulted in hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets around Germany to protest against ‘far-right extremism.’ The claim, however, turned out to be false, and Ulrich Vosgerau has sued not only Correctiv but other mainstream media outlets, as well as public broadcasters, who have repeated the false allegations. Despite numerous court victories, public broadcasters continue to spread disinformation about the meeting. We asked Ulrich Vosgerau about the court rulings and whether the “reporting” by Correctiv has backfired.
What do you think of the court rulings that clearly state that the mainstream and public media have been repeating false claims about the Potsdam meeting?
These court rulings speak for themselves: although it is not generally forbidden to report “falsely” about the Potsdam meeting, it is forbidden to assert specific, false facts. What I still do not understand is why there has not been a revolt by the media, especially the left-wing media and public broadcasters, against Correctiv. Because ultimately Correctiv has fooled everyone, and that is now costing them dearly.
To understand what has been happening in Germany since January 10th, one must understand how Correctiv works. It cleverly combines accurate but banal factual statements with sprawling “cascades of speculation”—a term conjured by the left-wing website Übermedien—so that untrained readers believe they have been given facts. But these were only expressions of opinion and “journalistic contextualisation” that fall under freedom of expression and are therefore not subject to legal challenge. The second part of this pre-planned, highly aggressive, morally low-level strategy, was the announcement by Correctiv that their so-called “research” (which was in reality nothing more than a fictional play) held up in court, or was not even legally challenged.
Correctiv writes, for example, that Martin Sellner [leader of the Austrian Identitarian Movement] used the term “remigration” [at the Potsdam meeting]. That is true. Then they go on to write: “Right-wing extremists often understand this to mean the deportation of millions of citizens, for example based on their skin colour!” They do not write, however, whether Martin Sellner also holds such views, and they especially do not write that he said anything like that at the meeting in Potsdam. They do not state either that Martin Sellner himself is one of these “right-wing extremists.” In any case, the untrained reader does not see through these subtleties, and thinks: if this were not demonstrably true, they would have been taken to court.
However, numerous established media, especially public broadcasters, have fallen for the narrative and reported it as fact. They actually wrote the following: “According to research by Correctiv, the deportation of even [German] citizens, e.g. based on their skin colour, was discussed at the Potsdam meeting.” That is clearly a false statement of fact, and we filed a lawsuit, and won one case after the other, including against Tagesschau.
This is costing them a lot of money. Tagesschau will pay its fine from the licence fee. Recently the Fränkischer Tag, a relatively small newspaper, had to pay a fine for making false statements of fact, and also printed a correction. The media, which operate in a market economy, have to wake up at some point: the German state supports Correctiv financially, putting money in the pockets of these fairytale-tellers. They publish outrageous narratives, false facts and cascades of speculation with the intention that these are taken as facts, “research,” and “revelations.” A private newspaper that falls for this has to pay a fortune. When will they revolt against Correctiv or its sponsors, the federal government, the Germans states, the transatlantic foundations?
Correctiv has changed its strategy, by the way. For half a year they watched gloatingly and complacently as the avalanche of lies they had triggered rolled through the German media landscape, causing enormous collateral damage. Only when they were attacked by the genuinely left-wing website Übermedien, and criticism of Correctiv’s dishonest and manipulative tactics reached the mainstream, did they decide to change their strategy, and are now suing other media for supposedly claiming that Correctiv made a false claim with regards to the Potsdam meeting. One of these media outlets is NiUS. However, NiUS never made such a claim about Correctiv but only pointed out that their Potsdam story was presented in such a way that the whole world believed non-facts to be facts.
Do you think that the media, including public broadcasters and programmes like Tagesschau will abide by the court rulings and correct their reports about the Potsdam meeting?
Generally speaking, yes. Many cease-and-desist letters have been issued, and some media outlets have published corrections. Our problem is still public broadcasting. There seems to be a real “news blackout” with regards to “facts” that are often believed to be true by the public as a result of Correctiv’s “reporting,” but which have all been refuted. We have so far won three court cases against Tagesschau, but so far its websites have hardly been updated.
Public broadcasting seems to take the following position: “We decide what is real and what is true. If we report it, it is real, and our side of the story is the truth. The courts can make a lot of decisions, but as long as we don’t report about these decisions, they don’t matter. Of course, the costs are high, a lot of money goes to court costs, lawyers’ fees, and fines, but we pay those out of the licence fees, and if they aren’t enough, we will increase them.”
The Correctiv affair in particular shows what a dubious role public broadcasting plays in Germany. An organisation like Correctiv would be completely powerless without the public broadcasting service. The public broadcasting service likes to play the part of the ministry of truth and propaganda, and it is always run by the Greens; you cannot vote them out of office.
The AfD party—an obvious target of the Correctiv article—has been very successful in the recent European and regional elections. Do you think the article was counterproductive?
The plan was probably to ignite a general mass hysteria against the opposition in the super election year of 2024. When the demonstrations started, public broadcasting tried to spin it as if it were a general popular uprising against the opposition. In fact, the left-wing scene gathered there, which has bigger concerns now than “remigration”: for years it has become accustomed to being generously funded by the state for “promoting democracy” and “fighting the Right,” but the state will not be able to afford that for much longer, as it is bankrupt due to the nonsensical “energy transition.”
The Correctiv campaign certainly hasn’t convinced a single AfD voter to support the government instead of the opposition. Last autumn, the chancellor himself called for “large-scale deportations” in a major Spiegel interview, and the coalition agreement signed by the government parties also talks of a “repatriation offensive.” However, in January of this year, the chancellor demonstrated in Potsdam against alleged remigration plans that were hardly distinguishable from his own announcements shortly before.
In addition, the whole thing had nothing to do with the AfD, which Correctiv wanted to blame everything on. The Düsseldorfer Kreis, which has been meeting annually for many years, is an informal group of entrepreneurs and freelancers with no connection to the AfD. At Martin Sellner’s book launch, there were twice as many CDU members as AfD members in the hall. However, this fact is systematically hushed up by Correctiv, which is based in Essen in North Rhine-Westphalia, where a CDU finance minister is responsible for registering them as a “non-profit organisation.” Which, of course, is no longer objectively justified, as Correctiv is not objectively “non-profit,” but a red-green dirt-slinging machine.
Why is the AfD stigmatised? Why is there a cordon sanitaire, a ‘Brandmauer’ surrounding the party?
The Brandmauer is an invention of the Reds and Greens: it effectively guarantees them involvement in every government, because an alternative parliamentary majority is prohibited from being formed. Of course, this “guarantee” only applies as long as the Reds and Greens are represented in parliament, but in the eastern states, they are now being cannibalised by the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party.Of course, there are tendencies in the AfD that did not exist before and that remain completely alien to me, such as the idea that it is in Germany’s national interests or it makes geopolitical sense to seek solidarity with Russia. However, this would isolate us from our natural allies in Eastern Europe, who, like the East Germans, fought for their freedom against the hegemony of the Soviet Union. This is not an AfD-specific policy: the BSW is pushing this peace-with-Russia narrative even more insistently to the fore. And CDU state leaders in the eastern regions, like Michael Kretschmer, have to publicly show great understanding for this, or even pretend to be understanding, in order not to be swept away in elections. This is more about the general mood in the new states, which I find incomprehensible, and not about why the Brandmauer was erected.
