Documents: ‘German Government Hired Scientists To Create Fear And Justify Lockdowns’
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Germany’s Interior Ministry hired scientists to help create an atmosphere of fear to justify government-imposed lockdowns and other restrictive measures during the coronavirus pandemic, internal documents show, prompting outrage among opposition leaders.
The respected Welt Am Sonntag newspaper obtained more than 200 internal correspondence pages, revealing that the ministry commissioned researchers from the Robert Koch Institute and other organizations. The experts were asked to formulate a “calculation model “and other content for political purposes.
As early as March 2020, the ministry of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer encouraged scientists to come up with a shock effect showing many possible coronavirus deaths and suffering, according to the published documents.
A group of lawyers, represented by the Berlin lawyer Niko Härting, fought for the correspondence in a legal dispute with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). The RKI was one of the institutions that provided content for a confidential paper in close cooperation with the ministry.
The paper, which RKI scientists and others wrote within four days, included a custom-made “worst-case scenario” calculation model. It claimed that more than a million people could die in Germany of the coronavirus if life would go on as normal. The narrative was later shared with often willingly obeying media outlets.
According to the obtained correspondence, suggestions were made on how to achieve the desired shock effect to ensure people would obey government orders. “You have to let images emerge in people’s minds: “Many seriously ill people are taken to hospital by their relatives. But they are turned away and die in agony at home, gasping for breath,” a helpful expert wrote in a brainstorming email exchange.
REPRESSIVE NATURE
The advice was welcomed by State Secretary Markus Kerber, who had asked for the analysis. He had told scientists that their paper should ensure that “further measures of a preventive and repressive nature” could be planned by the government.
Furious opposition leaders have now demanded an explanation in Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag. The deputy federal chairman of the liberal FDP party Wolfgang Kubicki accused the ministry of using communication in a way that he “would have assumed more in authoritarian states.”
He said anyone wanting to create fear in the German population to enforce political measures is “putting the ax to our basic democratic order. “He added: “Obviously, it is no longer a question of explaining political decisions to mature citizens in an evidence-based and factual manner. But it is rather to push these decisions through in a repressive way. ”
RKI’s involvement in the controversial internal paper is controversial. As Germany’s national agency for controlling and monitoring infectious and non-infectious diseases, it should be nominally independent. However, it is owned and funded through the Health Ministry. With roughly 1,100 employees, well over a third of whom are researchers, it receives a reported annual budget of nearly 100 million euros ($120 million).
A political spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Konstantin Kuhle, urged the Bundestag’s interior committee to ask the federal government “to send all correspondence.” He said he wants to put the topic on the agenda for the next committee meeting this Wednesday. It was not immediately clear what political consequences the scandal could have for Interior Minister Seehofer.
The political upheaval in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, could impact other European Union member states, Worthy News expects.
Leaders in neighboring the Netherlands and other countries have also come under pressure to explain lockdowns and curfews for a virus with a 99 percent survival rate.
In Germany, so far, over 62,000 people died of or with the coronavirus on a population of 83 million people, say health authorities. Most of those who die of COVID-19 are older adults with underlying health conditions, experts acknowledge.
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