The dispute over the veracity of the Correctiv report from January 10, 2024 about an alleged “secret meeting” in Potsdam and a “secret plan” for the mass expulsion of German citizens that was allegedly discussed there will soon come to the finale in court. Seven participants in the meeting contradict the claim in affidavits Correctivat the event the assumed formulations about the alleged deportation of Germans with a migration background were used.
The constitutional lawyer Ulrich Vosgerau also warned Correctiv because of alleged statements on the subject of postal voting, which the media platform attributes to him and which Vosgerau rejects as untrue. There Correctiv refused to issue a cease and desist declaration, the matter is now going to court.
Even before the hearing, Correctiv CEO David Schraven made a remarkable threat. Schraven wrote on I would be very careful if I were those people. We have done our work carefully. And we have no problem convicting 7 people.”
His announcement that the participants would be “convicted” because of a false declaration on oath seems strange for several reasons. On the one hand, there are no direct quotations in the Correctiv text from January 10th that would prove that anyone at the meeting in Potsdam called for the mass expulsion of migrants with German citizenship. All formulations in this direction only appear in the article in indirect speech and with the indication that the corresponding statements were made in the same way.
The medium caused the actual scandal with its crude parallel to the National Socialist Wannsee Conference in 1942 – and passages in which it was said that when right-wing extremists spoke of remigration, it was clear in any case that what was actually meant was a mass expulsion, including Germans with a migration background. The deputy Correctiv editor-in-chief Anette Dowideit even claimed in the ARD press club that the media platform had not used the term “deportation” at all. She certainly did – but only in connection with deportation plans from the Nazi era, not as an explicit claim that a participant in the meeting had spoken of “deportation”.
After Schraven’s threat, the first question arises: If Correctiv has court-proof evidence of who appeared at the meeting and with what literal wording – then why aren’t these literal quotations found in the Correctiv article? So far they have not been submitted.
And secondly: Why doesn’t Correctiv come out with this now? Since the participants’ affidavits are already part of the procedure, this would have to be done Correctiv Don’t wait until the court hearing to convict seven participants of the meeting of a crime. Published until this Monday Correctiv In any case, no corresponding evidence.
The third question is: What should the evidence announced by Schraven be? So far had Correctiv Upon request, he claimed that he did not secretly listen in on the meeting, but rather had other “sources” that could not be named.
The Correctiv website has been saying for a good four weeks: “For those who doubt the credibility of our accounts: To date, none of the AfD participants in the meeting have denied that they were discussing plans to force people out of Germany Only: “To push people out of Germany” is a very vague formulation. It also applies, for example, to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement in SPIEGEL: “We have to deport on a large scale”, as well as to the “repatriation offensive” that was stipulated in the traffic light coalition agreement – but has not yet taken place.
Apart from the fact that no participant in the Potsdam meeting holds any state office and has the power to “force people out of Germany” – talking about deportations of migrants without any prospect of staying would be completely unspectacular and no different from anything else Traffic light politicians say. Despite this deliberately very soft formulation, writes Correctiv but also on his side: “We have very reliable sources and therefore have no doubt at all that our representation of what was said at the meeting is correct. (…) We have carefully examined all evidence. However, we cannot provide any information about our sources, because protecting sources is an elementary and often practiced principle in investigative journalism in order not to put them in danger.”
Should Correctiv So if it were to carry out its threat to counter the affidavits in court with any previously unpublished evidence for mysterious reasons, the media platform would have to disclose its sources.
In view of this contradiction, Carsten Brennecke, the lawyer representing the participants at the meeting, reacts calmly. The lawyer from the renowned law firm Ralf Höcker also wrote on X:
“Seven participants at the Potsdam meeting affirm under oath that the Correctiv assessment that there was discussion about the expulsion of German citizens or expulsion based on racist criteria was wrong. Why should these confirmations be false, when even Correctiv, upon closer inspection, has not yet claimed that he liked these statements (!) – probably for good reason. I would be surprised if Mr. Schraven, knowing the insurance companies, were the first in Correctiv to firmly claim that this was really said at the ‘secret meeting’.”
The lawyer thus hits a crucial point: Even in his threatening statement about an impending “deportation,” Schraven does not explicitly state that the meeting called for the mass expulsion of German citizens – but rather formulates it vaguely and nebulously. Also Ulrich Vosgerau, who is against Correctiv proceeds legally, denotes opposite THE Schraven’s statement as a “threat that should not be taken seriously”.
This is not the first time that Schraven has used suggestion in legal disputes to create a certain impression in the public. As “Tichy’s Insight” 2019 against Correctiv sued because the tax-financed platform on Facebook linked posts from THE had provided a reputation-damaging “warning notice”, Schraven, after being successful in the first instance, gave the (false) impression that the legal dispute was now over, and Correctiv would be declared the winner: “We are now collecting the money for the legal costs from Tichy. End.”
As is usual in proceedings of this type, a hearing followed in the second instance THE won: The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court banned it Correctiv in the test case at issue in the proceedings, to link his “warning notice” on Facebook with the TE post. Published even after this final judgment Correctiv a rambling article that gave the impression Correctiv I won at least half. For example, the media company pointed out that the judges had not objected to its “fact checks” per se. However, that wasn’t what the process was about.
His credibility had Correctiv has been severely shaken in recent weeks. The Correctiv representative Anette Dowideit claimed during her appearance in the ARD press club: “We are not paid by the government.” In fact, the platform received more than half a million euros from funds from the federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2023 alone. In her advertising for the book “The AfD Complex”, in which Correctiv originally claimed that “deportation” was discussed at the “secret meeting” in Potsdam, the media platform subsequently removed the word – after Dowideit claimed that Correctiv wouldn’t have used it at all.
The upcoming legal dispute is now likely to be exciting. Either way: Correctiv will have to put his cards on the table.
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2024-02-12 19:00:21
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