Há 1 dia
segunda-feira, 29 de abril de 2024
John Swinney favourite to become Scotland’s first minister after Humza Yousaf quits
.jpg)
John Swinney favourite to become Scotland’s first
minister after Humza Yousaf quits
Former SNP leader may stand as unity candidate as
Yousaf steps down after one year in job
Severin
Carrell, Libby Brooks and Pippa Crerar
Mon 29 Apr
2024 14.25 BST
Humza
Yousaf has stepped down as Scotland’s first minister after failing to secure
enough cross-party support to survive a major crisis with the Scottish Greens.
His
resignation on Monday has thrown the Scottish National party into crisis, a
little over a year after he took office, with the party’s former leader John
Swinney quickly emerging as the favourite to become Scotland’s next first
minister. Various bookmakers said they had stopped taking bets on Swinney.
Swinney,
who quit government after Nicola Sturgeon stood down in February 2023,
confirmed he was “giving very careful consideration” to standing as a unity
candidate, after coming under intense pressure from senior figures inside the
SNP.
“I’ve been
somewhat overwhelmed by the requests that have been made for me to do that,
with many, many messages from many colleagues across the party,” he told Sky
News. “So I’m giving that issue very active consideration.”
In a
hastily arranged speech in Edinburgh, Yousaf admitted he triggered the crisis
by unilaterally scrapping a government coalition deal with the Scottish Greens
four days ago, leading to the Greens demanding his resignation.
“After
spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the
government and for the country I lead, I’ve concluded that repairing our
relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at
the helm,” he said in a statement at Bute House, the first minister’s official
residence.
Yousaf said
he planned to stay on as first minister until the party was able to elect his
successor, who will lead a minority government dependent on opposition support
to get laws passed and its budget agreed.
His
government’s survival also depends on Scottish Labour either dropping its plans
to call a vote of no confidence in the SNP government this week, or the motion
being defeated.
The SNP
needs the Scottish Greens to either abstain on the Labour motion or to support
the SNP to avoid defeat. Under Holyrood’s rules, a government cannot stay in
power if it loses a vote of no confidence.
Party
dealmakers expect they can persuade Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary,
to stand aside in Swinney’s favour, in order to avoid another bruising
leadership contest which could further damage the SNP’s popularity, so close to
a general election.
Forbes
narrowly lost to Yousaf in last year’s leadership contest after mounting
aggressive attacks on his centre-left politics and his close ties to Sturgeon,
and pushing a much more mainstream policy agenda. If Swinney does not stand,
Forbes will run for the leadership.
Speaking in
London on Monday, before Yousaf’s resignation statement, Swinney acknowledged
he was weighing up the request, but said it was a “very demanding role”. He
added: “I will consider what the first minister [Yousaf] says and reflect on
that. I may well have more to say at a later stage during the week.”
One party
veteran said Swinney, who is the SNP’s most experienced senior figure, had been
asked to stay as party leader until at least the Scottish parliamentary
elections due in May 2026. His allies say Swinney has to weigh that decision
against the needs of his family, however.
“I’ve got
lots of things to think about,” Swinney said. “There’s the whole question of my
family and I have to make sure that I do the right thing by my family, they are
precious to me. I have to do the right thing by my party and by my country.”
The party
source said: “He’s the best placed to give us a soft landing” after the last
few tumultuous months for the party, which has been overshadowed by the police
investigation into the SNP’s finances and the recent embezzlement charges
levelled against Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband and the party’s former chief
executive.
Swinney,
who previously served as SNP leader between 2000 and 2004, is seen by his
backers as far more likely than Forbes to win the support of the Scottish
Greens, who will refuse to work with Forbes because of her
socially-conservative views on abortion, gender reform and same-sex marriage.
Yousaf had
been facing two confidence votes at Holyrood in the coming days in a spiralling
crisis precipitated by his axing of the governing partnership with the Scottish
Greens last Thursday.
The Greens
responded by announcing hours later they would support a motion of no
confidence in Yousaf’s leadership brought by the Scottish Conservatives.
Without the
support of the Greens and with the SNP two votes short of a majority, this left
Yousaf reliant on the vote of Ash Regan, who defected from the SNP last year to
join Alex Salmond’s Alba party in protest at a lack of progress on independence
and the Scottish government’s stance on gender recognition changes.
The party’s
distaste for doing any deals with Salmond and Alba has partly fuelled the quest
to get Swinney to stand for the leadership.
Yousaf, who
was Scotland’s first leader of Asian and Muslim heritage, scrapped the Bute
House agreement – which was brokered by Sturgeon in 2021 and cemented a
progressive, pro-independence majority at Holyrood – after increasing internal
criticism within the SNP of Green influence on policy direction.
The
Scottish Greens planned its own vote on the future of the agreement after
members reacted furiously to the scrapping of climate targets and an NHS
Scotland decision to pause the prescription of puberty blockers after the
publication of the Cass review of gender identity services.
Yousaf has
faced a series of challenges since his election, including the continuing
police investigation into party finances that resulted in the arrest of
Sturgeon and Murrell being charged with embezzlement.
Responding
to Yousaf’s announcement, the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for
an election. “The SNP are a divided party which is out of ideas and incapable
of rising to the challenges Scotland faces,” he said.
“They
cannot impose another unelected first minister on Scotland in a backroom deal;
the people of Scotland should decide who leads our country. There must be an
election – it’s time for change and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.”
‘We want a vision that does not have tourism at its centre’: Venice residents protest new entry fee
‘We want a vision that does not have tourism at
its centre’: Venice residents protest new entry fee
The protesters say they want a different vision for
the city which doesn’t put tourism front and centre.
By Rebecca
Ann Hughes
Published
on 10/04/2024 - 16:00
The
protesters say they want a different vision for the city which doesn’t put
tourism front and centre.
Activists
in Venice have staged a protest against the new day-tripper entry fee which
will come into force on 25 April.
A social
housing group occupied a council building on Tuesday morning, displaying
banners with slogans criticising the €5 tourist charge.
The
organisation also announced plans for a demonstration on the day the ticket
will be launched.
The
protesters say they want a different vision for the city which doesn’t put
tourism front and centre.
Venice activists slam council spending on entry fee
Activists
from Venice’s Social Assembly for Housing and the Solidarity Network for
Housing have criticised council spending on the day-tripper fee.
During
their demonstration, they carried posters reading ‘Home, rights, dignity’ and
‘Venice is not a museum’.
The
activists entered council offices and requested to speak with the mayor and the
administration.
They
shouted “We don't need a ticket, but we need a political will to address the
problem of housing in Venice," according to local press.
Venetians call for better housing not a day-tripper
fee
The
demonstrators are some of the many Venetians who consider the housing plan
drawn up by the municipality to be insufficient.
“We are
students, we are workers. We have jobs that don't allow us to pay rent. Is this
the idea for the city?” they asked during the protest.
According
to one activist, the demonstration on Tuesday and the one planned for 25 April
“must not only lead to a resounding ‘no’ to the entrance ticket but also a
‘yes’ to a new vision of the city.”
“We want a
vision that does not have tourism at its centre, but has homes and services for
citizens,” Federica Toninello from the Social Assembly for Housing told local
press.
“We have
homeless people who work, but they don't have a home; it's something shocking,
paradoxical,” added Susanna Polloni from the Solidarity Network for Housing.
Venice
council has earmarked €27.7 million to repair and redevelop around 500
apartments in the historic centre, islands and mainland.
There are
reportedly around 2,000 properties currently lying empty.
The council
has said proceeds from the entry fees will go towards services that help the
residents of the city including maintenance, cleaning and reducing living
costs.
But critics
say it will do little to moderate the influx of tourism which in turn is one of
the main factors for the depopulation of Venice.
As of last
year, there are now more tourist beds in the city than residents.
‘Beacon of the world’: ex-Uffizi chief vows to save Florence if elected mayor
Interview
‘Beacon of the world’: ex-Uffizi chief vows to
save Florence if elected mayor
Angela
Giuffrida in Rome
Backed by Giorgia Meloni’s party, Eike Schmidt says
cracking down on burger stands, crime and overtourism will help restore status
Tue 23 Apr
2024 06.00 CEST
The former
director of the Uffizi gallery in Florence has promised a crackdown on crime
and burger stands in his quest to restore the Tuscan capital to its former
status as a cultural “beacon of the world”.
German-born
Eike Schmidt, 55, is standing in the city’s mayoral election on a civic list
backed by the prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy and
its ruling coalition partners, in an unusual collaboration that has raised a
few eyebrows in the world of art and politics.
In an
interview with the Guardian, Schmidt defined himself as “very much a centrist”
who during his eight years at the helm of the Uffizi steered clear of
politicking while increasing ticket sales with exhibitions that tackled bold
themes such as violence against women.
But he said
he had felt compelled to throw his hat into the ring “for a city that I love”
after being encouraged to run for mayor by Florentines, who he said stopped him
in the street to vent their frustrations over issues such as rising crime, a
shortage of affordable housing, graffiti, the perennial problem of overtourism
– and fast-food stands.
Pledging to
take action against the stands and mini-markets that have proliferated in the
centre of Florence, Schmidt, who became an Italian citizen last year, said mass
tourism was fuelling a “total deregulation” of the city’s food sector.
“In terms
of tourism what we’ve seen is a lowering of the standards,” he said. “We have
had dozens and dozens of restaurant licences being converted into burger
stands, so people just sell hamburgers and French fries from shop windows.
“There are
no tables, toilets, waste bins … people end up sitting down on any steps they
find, on monuments or outside the homes of citizens … and throwing greasy
papers on the street. It’s a hygienic issue and this total deregulation of the
food service sector really needs to stop.”
Florence is
one of Italy’s most-visited cities and while there is no silver-bullet solution
to overtourism, Schmidt said he would adopt a strategy to spread visitors to
undervisited areas of the city and the Tuscany region.
“We really
shouldn’t have this concentration of all the tourists just in the centre,” he
said. “Even considering a probable growth in numbers, the city should be able
to master it, while also spreading the benefits of tourism to other areas.”
He hopes to
revive Florence’s status as a “beacon” of art and culture by encouraging
home-grown production, be it opera, theatre or exhibits. “We have seen,
especially over the past decade, productions that have been purchased from
elsewhere in the world, while hardly any have been exported.”
Schmidt’s
candidacy in Florence, a leftwing stronghold for decades, spells a genuine
challenge for Italy’s opposition, which in recent years has lost ground to the
rightwing coalition in several key towns and cities in the wider Tuscany
region. A poll in March put Schmidt eights points behind Sara Funaro, the
centre-left’s mayoral candidate, which analysts said in Florentine terms was
highly unusual.
“Based on
the sentiment on the streets and based on surveys, which tell us that this is
the first time in many, many decades that any party other than the left has a
chance to win, I am actually very confident about the possibility of winning,”
Schmidt said.
“Florence
has really the best set of cards that one could imagine, we just have to play
them.”
While at
the Uffizi, Schmidt built a reputation for modernisation, efficiency and order
while maintaining a sharp eye for beauty.
He first
met Meloni after giving her a tour of the gallery a few years ago, and said he
had been “positively impressed” by her leadership since she became prime
minister. “I think she is a very strong and pragmatic leader, and many people
would not have expected that from her before,” Schmidt said.
Meloni’s
government has provoked controversy among many in Italy’s cultural sector for
clearing out the old, often foreign leadership of some of the country’s most
prestigious museums and cultural organisations and pushing for them to be
replaced by Italians.
Critics
have also accused her administration of wanting to bend the state broadcaster,
Rai, to its will, with opposition parties calling last week for the European
Commission to investigate allegations it is trying to turn its news channel
into a “megaphone” for the ruling parties before the European elections.
Echoing
favoured rightwing themes, Schmidt said one of his chief priorities would be
tackling crime, something he claimed the left had “closed its eyes to”.
“Florence
has big issues in terms of security – crime rates are rising across all 14
districts of the city,” he added. “We see it especially more in the periphery,
where crime rates have been consistently rising.”
Hit-and-run tourism is tearing the heart out of Florence – there is a better way
Hit-and-run tourism is tearing the heart out of
Florence – there is a better way
Cecilie
Hollberg
As I learned from managing Michelangelo’s David,
visitors can be nudged away from the joyless in-and-out mission for selfies and
souvenirs
Thu 18 Apr
2024 08.00 CEST
Florence is
an exquisite city. Because of its history and its cultural heritage as the
cradle of the Italian Renaissance, it is unique, precious and very fragile. The
historic centre – a Unesco world heritage site – occupies a very small space.
The city’s 366,000 inhabitants are joined each year by about 11 million
tourists. Maintaining the characteristic dignity of the place and meeting the
needs of those who live here permanently while managing this volume of tourism,
is a great challenge and responsibility. For most of the year, Florence
struggles to do either sustainably.
To be
clear, tourism is an essential source of income and I am not opposed to
tourists. The problem is that many visitors are on a quick in-and-out mission
to take selfies in front of a few major sights – Michelangelo’s David,
Botticelli’s Primavera, the Piazza della Signoria – to show people at home that
they have been to Florence, while essentially trampling the city without
contributing anything.
I love
Florence and am saddened when I see how mass tourism is hollowing out its
ordinary commercial life: just as in attractive cities the world over,
neighbourhood stores in the centre have all but disappeared. What is left is
aimed at hit-and-run tourist groups, at visitors on the hunt for food, and
souvenirs such as magnets or aprons depicting parts of David’s anatomy.
Anyone who
has been to Florence in recent years will have experienced how its major sites
and the areas surrounding them are completely overrun and smothered. The city
attracts many different types of tourist – from the cultural visitor, to the
cruise-ship holidaymaker rushing in for a few brief hours. Most move along just
a few well-beaten paths: to the Galleria dell’Accademia, the Piazza del Duomo,
the Piazza della Signoria, the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio, and Palazzo Pitti.
But all of
this tourism must be managed, otherwise it stops being a resource and becomes
only a problem. And over the years Florence has gradually lost parts of its
identity as it has lost its citizens – fewer than 40,000 now live in the
historic centre, which is overrun with Airbnb apartments and eateries. Most
Florence residents feel profoundly frustrated by the impossibility of leading a
normal life in their city. Their precious jewel must be protected and not sold
off and compromised any further.
Since 2015,
I have had the great honour of directing the famous Galleria dell’Accademia in
Florence, best known for Michelangelo’s David. For years I have struggled for
legal copyright to protect David’s dignity against commercial exploitation –
and have had some major successes.
But the
problems I have witnessed both in the gallery and in the city at large have
also given me an opportunity to explore possible solutions to over-tourism,
considering the obvious, which is that we cannot enlarge the space.
When I
arrived eight years ago I got together with museum staff and we devised a
masterplan. We started with the museum’s relationship to the city’s
inhabitants, many of whom had become distanced from it, perceiving it as a
space just for tourists. To give the museum back to the city, we began
involving residents in its daily life, launching events for everyone, young and
old, accessible for free. Admission to the museum is also free every first
Sunday of the month.
I founded
an “association of friends” to reconnect the museum with people everywhere. We
looked at such issues as the quality of the visitor experience and orientation,
as well as seasonal distribution.
Visitors
used to crowd along a single trajectory heading straight from the entrance to
Michelangelo’s David, allowing just enough time for a selfie there before
exiting – mirroring what tourists still do in the city, trooping from the
Accademia to the Pitti Palace but seeing little else.
Today,
after much hard work, Accademia visitors find a welcoming, modern museum and a
high-quality experience. We have opened new galleries, put objects on display
that were not visible before and reinstalled others. Refurbished air
conditioning means we no longer have to close rooms in the summer heat. LED
lighting enhances each individual work allowing us to manage the flow of
visitors into every part of the museum. We no longer find them all just piled
up in front of David.
We have
reduced the maximum number in tour groups to make the visit more enjoyable for
everyone. New signage saves time and leaves people feeling reinvigorated, not
exhausted. David remains the star attraction. But now our visitors also look at
the other objects and give them the dignity and respect they merit. The museum
has found a balance.
Thanks to
these strategic choices visits to the museum increased by 42% between 2015 and
2023. Last year we exceeded 2 million annual visitors for the first time – not
by squeezing them in but by extending opening hours in the summer – late
opening twice a week – and having one main exhibition in the winter rather than
bunching them in the high season.
By breaking
down physical and cognitive barriers to encounters with art and culture we have
made the Galleria dell’Accademia a modern, accessible museum that promotes
diversity and sustainability. As a result, I believe that many of our extra
visitors are local people who were not previously regulars but have been
enticed in. We’re seeing a lot more younger visitors too.
In a way,
the Accademia can be viewed as a kind of microcosm of Florence. And I have seen
what a sustainable approach can achieve. Slower tours, smaller groups, better
signage and orientation, de-seasonalisation; distribution of visitors, longer
openings; these things have been transformative. They also benefit the city and
its inhabitants.
Eleven
million people every year want to experience Florence and they can’t be turned
away – they can however be managed, and in the process the city’s heritage can
be secured for future generations. However, my expertise and ability to act
begin and end at the museum door.
Cecilie
Hollberg is the director of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez decides not to resign: ‘Let’s show the world how democracy is defended’
SPAIN
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez decides not to resign:
‘Let’s show the world how democracy is defended’
The PM says he will be ‘stronger than ever’ and fight
what he describes as a harassment campaign against his wife that is part of a
larger reactionary movement spreading in Spain and the world
Madrid - APR 29, 2024 - 12:00 GMT+2
Pedro
Sánchez
Pedro
Sánchez speaking in La Moncloa, the seat of government.
Spain’s
prime minister, Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), on Monday
morning confirmed that he has decided not to resign, to stay at the helm of
government and to keep going “stronger than ever,” following five days of
uncertainty about his political future.
His
decision to take a break from all official engagements on Wednesday came after
a court opened an initial inquiry into his wife, Begoña Gómez, over corruption
allegations. The accusation was brought by an association called Manos Limpias
(Clean Hands) with ties to the far right and a history of bringing legal action
against left-wing leaders. Sánchez last week described the move against his
wife as “a harassment campaign.”
On Monday,
Sánchez said that the shows of support from party officials and from grassroots
sympathizers over the last five days had helped him make the decision to stay
at the helm of his center-left coalition government.
“My wife
and I know that this discrediting campaign will not end. We have been suffering
it for 10 years. It is serious, but it is not the most relevant thing. We can
overcome it,” he said from La Moncloa, the seat of government. “The important
thing is that we want to thank the shows of solidarity that came from all
sides. Thanks to this mobilization, I have decided to stay.”
Sánchez’s
address included remarks on the growing polarization of Spanish politics and
beyond. “This is not about the fate of any individual leader. This is about
deciding what kind of society we want to be. I ask Spanish society to once
again be an example and a role model for a convulsed, hurting world. The ills
that plague us are part of a global reactionary movement that seeks to impose
its regressive agenda through slander and falsehood, through hate, and by
playing on fears and threats that are not backed by science or rationality.
Let’s show the world how democracy is defended.”
On
Wednesday, following the opening of the inquiry into his wife, Sánchez locked
himself away with his family and drafted a letter stating that he was seriously
considering resigning after the “unprecedented attacks” against his wife. “I
need to stop and reflect. I have to answer the question of whether it is worth
it, whether I should continue at the head of the government or resign from this
honor,” the president said in a “letter to citizens” posted on the social
network X, without an official letterhead — a sign that it was a personal
matter.
The inquiry
is the result of a complaint filed by an ultra-conservative group whose leaders
have in the past been sentenced to jail (and later acquitted) for extorting
money from financial institutions.
10.12.2022: Prince Putsch and His Gang The Motley Crew that Wanted to Topple the German Government
Prince Putsch and His Gang
The Motley Crew that Wanted to Topple the German
Government
An obscure German blue blood is reportedly at the
center of a strange plan to topple the German government foiled this week by
the country's security services. Observers are describing the development as a
dangerous escalation of the Reichsbürger movement, whose followers want to
overthrow Germany's leaders.
By Maik
Baumgärtner, Jörg Diehl, Roman Höfner, Martin Knobbe, Matthias Gebauer, Tobias
Großekemper, Roman Lehberger, Ann-Katrin Müller, Sven Röbel, Fidelius Schmid
und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt
10.12.2022, 13.36 Uhr
The
Waidmannsheil hunting lodge is enthroned on a hill on a bend of the Saale River
in the southeastern part of the eastern German state of Thuringia. It belongs
to the Reussens, a former noble family who ruled the area for 800 years before
the end of the German monarchy.
It was
built for Henry the 72nd between 1834 and 1837, a single-story structure
surrounded by trees and a steep rocky embankment that falls away behind the
building. The entrance portal is flanked by sculptures of a bear and boar, both
of stone. A tower with battlements makes the whole thing look a lot like a
small fortress. Stag antlers hang from the very top of the façade.
The present
lord of the manor is Henry XIII. Prince Reuss, an entrepreneur who established
himself in Frankfurt as a real estate mogul and as a producer of sparkling
wine. Some residents of the small town had been wondering for some time what
the 71-year-old was up to. First, a mysterious sign appeared with the Reussen
coat of arms. Then a sinister looking figure with a walkie-talkie was seen
standing at the entrance to the estate, apparently there to keep prying eyes
out of a meeting.
Since
Wednesday, it seems clear what was going on behind the massive walls. Early
that morning, the GSG9, a special German police force, moved in to root out a
suspected right-wing extremist terror cell. It is believed to include at least
25 members and helpers, and 29 other men and women are also under
investigation. In concert with around 3,000 officers, investigators conducted
raids in 11 German states as well as in the upscale Austrian ski resort town
Kitzbühel and in Perugia, Italy. It was one of the largest operations against
extremists in the history of the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).
For weeks,
investigators from the BKA's State Security Division had been shadowing
suspects, tapping hundreds of landlines and mobile phones, screening bank
accounts and monitoring channels on Telegram, YouTube and Instagram.
Ultimately, the Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe concluded that a terrorist
organization had emerged from the milieu of the "Reichsbürger," a
motley crew of politically radicalized Germans who have a weakness for
conspiracy theories and reject the legitimacy of postwar Germany. The cell's
presumed goal was that of overthrowing the political system in Germany in an
armed coup. According to investigators, some members formed the "military
arm" of the group and were apparently willing to do whatever it took.
According to the allegations brought forward by prosecutors, the defendants
accepted the fact that "representatives of the current system" would
be killed in the process.
It is a
rather strange menagerie that came together to overthrow the state. It includes
several former members of the German military's Special Forces Command (KSK),
an active elite soldier, a police officer who had been suspended from duty, a
judge who had been a member of the federal parliament with the far-right
Alternative for Germany party for four years, a pilot, a lawyer who holds a
doctorate degree, a top chef, a tenor singer, an entrepreneur and a doctor - a
surprising number of people from the upper echelons of society.
DER SPIEGEL
50/2022
The article
you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 50/2022 (December 10th,
2022) of DER SPIEGEL.
SPIEGEL
International
They
include members of the Querdenker, a muddled movement that took to the streets
during the pandemic in protest against the federal and state measures to
contain the coronavirus. It also includes followers of the conspiracy cult
QAnon, who are convinced that a "deep state" is pulling the strings
in the background. According to the narrative they espouse, the ruling elite
murder children to harvest a rejuvenation serum.
Previously,
these right-wing enemies of the state had seemed more like an esoteric
political sect than a strictly hierarchical revolutionary commando. The problem
is that there are probably tens of thousands of people in these circles in
Germany who hold views similar to those of Prince Reuss and his followers.
If the
investigators' suspicions are ultimately confirmed, it would mean that Germany
finds itself faced with a new form of terrorism and an enormous societal
challenge. How is the state supposed to deal with citizens with whom it is
unclear if they are just dangerously insane or if they are insanely dangerous?
The world
witnessed just how quickly a group of conspiracy theorists can turn into a
violent mob in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. That's the day around
1,000 supporters of then President Donald Trump, who had been voted out of
office, advanced into the heart of American democracy, the Capitol, a mob that
including a bare-chested man dressed as a Viking. The iconic image would later
serve as a symbol for the vulnerability of democracy. And for how quickly
people can throw out the societal rulebook.
The group
associated with Henry XIII Prince Reuss appear to have modeled themselves after
the far-right revolutionaries in the United States. Members are alleged to have
spent a year planning for the German "Day X," on which, according to
the investigation, they planned to enter the federal parliament building, the
Reichstag, with around two dozen men and women. They intended to handcuff
members of parliament and the chancellor's cabinet in the Bundestag.
According
to investigators, some of the conspirators hoped that the action would spark
unrest throughout the country and eventually lead to a coup. An interim
government was to be formed, headed by Prince Reuss. "We're going to crush
them, the fun is over!" he allegedly said in a call that the authorities
were listening in on.
It is
doubtful whether the alleged terrorists would actually have been capable of
pulling off their crazy ideas. And not just because the Bundestag police have
spent weeks preparing for the possibility of an attack, and the fact that the
BKA's bodyguards, who provide protection for the most important government
ministers, had been put on alert. Indeed, one "Day X" had already
apparently passed without anything happening.
Nevertheless,
the authorities assessed the danger posed by the wannabe revolutionaries as
high. On their path to the great coup, they could have caused a lot of damage,
and the fanaticism of some members could have led them to make unpredictable
moves.
Investigators
say they found weapons in more than 50 of the 150 buildings searched. They
include nine-millimeter pistols, swords, knives, stun guns, combat helmets,
night vision goggles and the service weapons of two police offices, one male,
one female, who are among the suspects. In addition, according to a preliminary
evaluation, investigators seized 130,000 euros in cash and several kilograms of
silver and gold. "The investigations provide a view into the abyss of a
terrorist threat from the Reichsbürger milieu," said German Interior
Minister Nancy Faeser of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
According to Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank, the group's goal was to eliminate
democracy in Germany "by using violence and military means."
German
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser: the group's goal was to eliminate democracy in
Germany "by using violence and military means."
BKA
officers searched the apartment as masked police officers secured the front
door on the first floor. After around four hours, police led Prince Reuss out
of the building in handcuffs and wearing an FFP2 mask. He wore a large plaid
tan tweed jacket, rust brown corduroy pants, a shirt and neckerchief, his white
hair slicked back - not exactly the appearance one might expect of a terrorist.
Heinrich
XIII Prince Reuss descends from a broadly extended noble family that guided the
fortunes of the Thuringian Vogtland region until the end of World War I. By
family tradition, all male descendants receive the first name Heinrich. To
avoid any confusion, there is an addition to the name: ascending Roman
numerals. Each century, the numbering starts anew. A relative says there are
currently 30 Heinrichs in the family.
Prince
Reuss, born in the western state of Hesse in 1951, graduated with a degree in
engineering and initially worked as an entrepreneur in Frankfurt. He is
considered to be a bon vivant and is married to the daughter of an Iranian
banker. His fondness for fast cars earned him the nickname "Heinrich the
Race Driver" among his family. The headline of one newspaper report about
a joyride taken together with him in eastern Germany read: "A Blue Blood
with Gasoline in His Blood."
After the
fall of the Berlin Wall, he fought in numerous court cases for the restitution
of the family property in Thuringia, which had been expropriated by the
Communist regime of East Germany. He had only limited success. Relatives also
see this as one of the reasons for him drifting into the extremes.
He has
fallen out with the rest of his family. The head of the "family alliance
of the House of Reuss," who resides in Austria, let it be known in a
statement that the relative is a "bitter old man" with
"conspiracy theory delusions."
One can get
a sense of those delusions on YouTube, with one video showing Prince Reuss at a
digital trade show in Zürich. In broken English, he delivers a confused and
anti-Semitic jeremiad. He laments the supposed power held by Jewish capitalists
and claims that World War I played into the hands of U.S. business interests.
He says that the Federal Republic of Germany isn't a sovereign state and that
it is still dominated by the Allies to this very day - all central elements of
the Reichsbürger ideology. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution,
Germany's domestic intelligence agency, estimates that around 21,000 people in
Germany are affiliated with the movement.
Over the
summer, Prince Reuss was involved in a commotion in Bad Lobenstein. The town's
mayor, who holds no political affiliation but is also known for adherence to
conspiracy theories, invited him to a reception. A reporter with the
Ostthüringer Zeitung newspaper asked why a "Reichsbürger" had been
invited to an official event. At a reception following the event, the mayor
then attacked the journalist, who fell to the ground. Later, the mayor was
suspended from his post.
All of this
could be dismissed as a provincial farce, but the authorities soon stumbled
across clues hinting at Reuss' dangerous plans. Prosecutors would later accuse
him of having aspired to build a "New German Army." So-called
"Homeland Security Companies" in the Black Forest, Thuringia and
Saxony had allegedly agreed to help with the "shadow army." A special
commission made up of hundreds of BKA officers called "Shadows" has
been investigating the case since summer.
The
government will soon be replaced by something "new," one of the
suspects announced on YouTube.
Rüdiger von
Pescatore, 69, is thought to have played a leading role. Prior the pandemic, he
spread the following message on the internet: "The truth will be
accessible to mankind only after a system change."
In the
mid-1990s, he had been a commander of a paratrooper battalion of the German
armed forces Airborne Brigade 25 based in Calw near Stuttgart, a kind of
predecessor to the elite KSK unit. That is, until he became the focus of a
scandal in the Bundeswehr.
As a
lieutenant colonel, he had diverted weapons from old stocks of the East German
People's Police and the National People's Army for himself and others. During
that time, 165 functioning pistols and rifles disappeared, and only 11 were recovered.
A court sentenced Pescatore to two years' probation in 1999, ending his career
in the Bundeswehr.
Investigators
believe the former soldier led the "military arm" of the terror
group.
Peter
Wörner, a man who served in the same battalion as Pescatore in the 1990s and
was trained as a survival commando by the Bundeswehr, is also thought to belong
to this "New German Army." On Instagram, he posts photos from his
active-duty days: skydiving in the Pyrenees, heavily armed in the Swabian Alb
mountains, with American special forces in the U.S. The homegrown German Rambo
is 54 years old.
Most
recently, Wörner worked as a trainer teaching survival skills. In Germany and
Norway, he teaches participants how to survive under the most adverse
conditions. One of his courses is called "escape from urban areas."
Another is "urban survival." He once told an Austrian newspaper that
he couldn't rely on the state in an emergency. People are naive and unprepared,
he said.
The German
public TV station ZDF ran a segment about him in 2016. In it, Wörner is seen
preparing a rat as a meal on the forest floor in the Rhön Mountains of
Thuringia. Using a knife, you have to slit the animal once all around, he
explains in the video, then you can easily peel off the skin, "like a pair
of pants or a jacket."
Wörner
first came onto the radar of terror investigators in the spring during an
investigation into the Querdenker movement. During a search of his home in the
Fichtelgebirge Mountains, police officers found a pistol and ammunition that
Wörner was apparently not authorized to possess. In a YouTube video discovered
by investigators, he talks about a coup. He says the government is nothing but
a "criminal clique" that will soon be replaced by something
"new."
Later, in
conversations intercepted by investigators, the former elite soldier talks
about storming the Reichstag building to arrest members of parliament.
His case
would be the starting point for the investigation that led to Prince Reuss and
his alleged plans to topple the government. And the network also apparently
includes a soldier who is an active member of the KSK elite military force.
Andreas M.
is assigned to the special Bundeswehr unit as a logistician, but he is more of
a bureaucrat than a well-trained commando. Nevertheless, the staff sergeant has
plenty of military experience, having served several tours in Afghanistan with
the Bundeswehr. He even wrote a book about the war, called "You Can Die
Every Day," a kind of eyewitness account from the front.
Following
his deployments in Afghanistan, he joined the KSK in Calw. Fellow soldiers from
the small, largely segregated elite unit describe the 58-year-old as being
somewhat of an oddball, but otherwise not particularly compelling.
The fact
that Andreas M. was trending toward radicalization could certainly have been
detected by the KSK. By 2021, at the latest, his WhatsApp profile picture
suggested a penchant for conspiracy theories, even mentioning the "deep
state." But it would take months before his superiors at the KSK grew
suspicious. In February, he refused to take the coronavirus vaccine. He wrote
that it is questionable whether compulsory vaccination in the Bundeswehr is
"compatible with the Allied occupation law still in force." At that
point, they called in MAD, the military intelligence service. They then
determined that he was part of the Querdenker movement and ordered him to take
several weeks of sick leave.
Investigators
believe that M. smuggled members of the suspected terrorist group into barracks
in October using his military ID. Their deranged plan, according to the
investigation, was to inspect whether the facilities would be suitable for
housing their own troops after the coup.
The soldier
apparently isn't the only person working for the government who used his free
time to prepare for the elimination of that very state. Among those arrested
was a judge at the Berlin Regional Court, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who holds a
doctorate degree in law.
It was
still dark out, when law enforcement officers closed in on her. Police officers
snuck through the neighbor's backyard to her home in the upper middle class
Berlin district of Wannsee. At 6 a.m., they banged their fists on the door.
"Police," one yelled. Then there was a crash – the men used a crowbar
to force their way into the judge's house.
Malsack-Winkemann
is alleged to have been involved since summer in the plans to break into the
Reichstag building. She would have been a valuable expert for preparations:
From 2017 to 2021, the 58-year-old held a seat in the Bundestag as a member of
the right-wing AfD party. Until her arrest, she was a member of the party's
Federal Arbitration Court, which decides on expulsion proceedings against
particularly extreme members. Her knowledge of the Bundestag could have been
helpful to the terrorist group, the investigators believe. Until her arrest,
she also possessed a pass to get into the Bundestag as a former member of
parliament.
Malsack-Winkemann's
lawyer declined to comment on the allegations, as did Prince Reuss' defense
lawyer. Lawyers for most of the other defendants could not be reached for
comment.
In her
party, the judge was considered part of the less radical camp, which says quite
a bit about the AfD. She was extremely adept at spreading agitation and fake
news.
For
example, she claimed in a speech in the Bundestag that refugees are
"colonized with antibiotic-resistant bacteria." During the pandemic,
she speculated that a 13-year-old girl died because she had been wearing a
mask, an outright lie. She also described Donald Trump as a "true
statesman," even after the storming of the Capitol that he had stoked.
In 2021, in
a party conference speech, the lawyer called for resistance to the "Great
Reset," a conspiracy ideology with anti-Semitic connotations, according to
which "the elites" were using the coronavirus crisis to carry out a
"great reboot" of the global economic system. In a Telegram channel
bearing her name, messages with a slogan of the QAnon cult were disseminated
until a few weeks ago. When DER SPIEGEL asked her if it was her channel, the
AfD politician denied it. Shortly afterwards, the entries disappeared.
After she
left the Bundestag, the Berlin judicial administration sought to prevent Malsack-Winkemann
from returning to the regional court – initially without success. Since then,
she has again been able to render verdicts at Chamber 19a, which is responsible
for construction matters.
Even during
the legal tug-of-war over her job, Malsack-Winkemann had become a target of
terror investigators. Officers shadowed her and observed her as the judge met
with Henry XIII Prince Reuss, the suspected ringleader, in a Berlin restaurant.
Another AfD functionary was also present at the meeting.
Among the
accused, there are at least two other men who are or were active in the AfD at
the regional level. Also accused is Michael Fritsch, the leading candidate in
the state of Lower Saxony for Die Basis, a party linked to the Querdenker
movement, in the 2021 federal election. Within the scene, they call him the
"protection man with a heart and a brain."
The
59-year-old used to be the chief detective at the Hannover Police Department.
That is, until he attracted attention with crude statements at rallies and was
suspended. He spoke of alleged parallels between the SS and today's
"security apparatus." As early as 2020, Fritsch returned his German
identity card and applied for a "citizenship card," as is customary
in the Reichsbürger scene. He also requested to have his birth state changed to
"Prussia." A court has since ruled that the police can remove him from
the civil service, a decision he appealed. His defense attorney didn't want to
comment on the terror allegations from the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
For all its
bizarreness, what makes the group so dangerous is its deep hatred of the state
and the governing politicians. And its access to weapons. Several of the
defendants allegedly possessed pistols and rifles, some legally and others
illegally.
According
to investigators, some of the suspects practiced shooting on Oschenberg
Mountain near Bayreuth in Bavaria. The conspiratorial actions of the group
created a major headache for investigators. The hard core of the group
allegedly equipped itself with around a dozen Iridium satellite phones that
have a unit price of around 1,500 euros each. They would still work even if the
mobile phone network collapsed. The conspirators also allegedly signed
nondisclosure agreements. Those who violated the terms would face death, it
stated.
According
to investigators, Alexander Q. is among the supporters of Reuss' group. He runs
one of the most trafficked German QAnon channels on Telegram, with more than
131,000 subscribers. His channel has an innocuous name: "Just ask
us." But the hashtags he uses, such as WWG1WGA, quickly make clear what it
is really about – the abbreviation stands for the motto of the QAnon disciples:
Where we go one, we go all.
In his
voice messages, he regularly railed against the "fascist regime" and
spread fake news nonstop. In July 2021, shortly before the massive flooding
disaster in Germany's Ahr Valley, he claimed, for example, that the flood water
had washed up the corpses of 600 children. He claimed they had been imprisoned
for years in underground facilities, where they were tortured and finally
killed in order to deprive them of the metabolic chemical compound
adrenochrome, which supposedly has a rejuvenating effect. The tale of murdered
children is a popular conspiracy tale among followers of the QAnon cult.
Four weeks
after the 2021 federal election in Germany, the Telegram propagandist posted a
voice message on his channel warning of a large scale fraud – like the one in
the U.S. In the eyes of QAnon supporters there, Donald Trump was removed from
power through election fraud. The unleashed their fury by storming the Capitol.
Germany has
also had a similar scare, although on a much smaller scale. In the summer of
2020, supporters of conspiracy theories stormed the stairs of the Reichstag
building on the sidelines of a major protest in Berlin against measures aimed
at containing the spread of the coronavirus. A QAnon disciple had given the
signal to run: "We're going up there and taking our house back here today
and from now on!" For a brief moment, only three policemen stood between
the roaring crowd and the entrance gate to the house of parliament. Then
reinforcements arrived and they succeeded in keeping parliament sealed off.
Why people
from all educational and professional backgrounds believe in abstruse
narratives is a question that researchers have tried to explore in recent years.
Social
psychologist Pia Lamberty differentiates between misinformation and
disinformation and broader conspiracy narratives. She says that people are
particularly susceptible to fake news if they have neither the capacity nor the
motivation to delve deeply into a topic. The simpler or more emotional the
answers, the easier it is for them to catch on.
She says
the belief in all-encompassing conspiracy narratives, on the other hand, has
more to do with a person's own identity and psychological phenomena, with a
general distrust of "powerful people" such as politicians or
scientists, for example. That, she says, can lead to the conviction that
everything bad that happens in society is the result of secret planning.
Lamberty considers the group that has now been uncovered to be "extremely
dangerous" precisely because of its composition.
The retreat
of many people into the digital world during the pandemic has led to further
growth in the number of people following and believing in conspiracy theories.
In the relevant channels and networks, people found their peers turning hose
channels into echo chambers that often lacked any countering viewpoints or factual
comparisons. The war in Ukraine and the subsequent economic crisis have
exacerbated that development. Crises act as catalysts for a fundamental
critique of the system. "What is decisive for the success of the
conspiracy theory is not its truth content, but its potential to plausibly
resolve contradictions, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Philipp Sterzer writes
in his book "The Illusion of Reason."
The result
is a polarization of society, with the group that rejects the political system
growing increasingly visible. It's a development that the British-American
economist and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, for example, currently believes
is affecting the entire West. Deaton says it is related to the declining growth
in recent decades.
As is the
case with many movements in society, extremist groups develop on the fringes,
believing that they can only achieve their goals through violence. During the
1968 era, it was groups like the far-left Red Army Faction, and, more recently,
terrorist groups formed out of Salafist circles. And it was only a matter of
time before radical groups would emerge from the coronavirus skeptics and the
Querdenker movement, for whom protests in the streets or on the internet didn't
go far enough.
The
increasing propensity for violence within these circles had been apparent for
some time. As the pandemic has progressed, the tone on relevant Telegram
channels had become increasingly bellicose. There has been talk of
"overthrowing the ruling criminal regime," of "revenge"
that would be cruel: "They will all be hanged in the end."
As early as
May 2021, the Interior Ministry for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, warned
that such violent digital fantasies could lead "to the establishment of
terrorist structures." The different branches at the federal and state
level of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection
of the Constitution, increasingly started infiltrating "virtual
agents" into chat groups: with fake profiles whose authors only pretend to
belong to the scene in order to be able to detect when words turn into deeds.
But the sheer number of channels makes it impossible for authorities to keep
track of all potential perpetrators of violence.
Radical
circles that had long marched separately also came together on the streets.
They included right-wing extremists, the Reichsbürger, followers of the
anti-Muslim group PEGIDA, fans of the AfD, New Age esoterics and opponents of
vaccination. In the end, it barely mattered whether it was against the
anti-corona measures, the government's position in the Ukraine war or the
skyrocketing prices. What united them is their hatred of "the people at
the top."
From the
stages of the demonstrations, speakers chanted once again that "the Reichstag
should be swept out," and all the members of parliament should be
replaced. They railed that government ministers were crazy or "just
mercenaries" waging economic war against the German people. That there is
a need for "resistance" and that the police should join them. They
longed for a coup.
Some
followed their sense of longing even before Prince Reuss and his group were
accused of planning the coup.
Several
months ago, a group from the Reichsbürger and Querdenker circles apparently
made plans to kidnap German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. They wanted to
abduct him while he was on a talk show, live on camera. The code word for the
operation: "Klabautermann," the name for hobgoblin from German
mythology. According to investigators, Lauterbach's bodyguards were to be taken
out with shots from machine guns, after which point the government was to be
forced to resign. According to court records, the group also wanted to get
their blessing for the coup from Russia.
Emissaries
wanted to cross the Baltic Sea to Kaliningrad by ship and ask for an audience
with the Kremlin – with Vladimir Putin himself. Five suspected members of the
cell are in custody.
A
completely insane plan. What is known is that the group had already secured
weapons and was trying to get its hands on more. An undercover investigator
from the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office possibly thwarted
worse from happening.
Two cases
from Baden-Württemberg show how unpredictable the threat really is. In April,
the police wanted to confiscate a weapon from a Reichsbürger ideologue who had
been banned from possessing it. When police in the town of Boxberg-Bobstadt
arrived to search the house, the man fired several dozen shots from a fully
automatic rifle, injuring two officers. On the Reichsbürger's property, the
investigators discovered a kind of walk-in armory, and they found a machine gun
that had been set up in the living room.
A few weeks
earlier, a Reichsbürger adherent had apparently deliberately run over a
policeman during a traffic check in the southern Baden region in the state. He
told the magistrate they didn't have the right to arrest him, that the
magistrate lacked the "legal capacity."
The
authorities long underestimated the movement of "Reichsbürger and self-administrators."
Many laughed them off as crackpots who wield in fantasy IDs and proclaim
kingdoms. But dangerous? They thought not.
That view
has since changed completely. The ideological stubbornness and irrationality
make supporters of the Reichsbürger movement particularly dangerous, says one
senior investigator.
One man
whose radicalization took place on the open stage is Maximilian Eder.
Investigators also count him among the group surrounding Heinrich XIII Prince
Reuss. He is alleged to have received 50,000 euros from him to further equip
their "military arm," the "New German Army." It is unclear
how that money was eventually used – some fellow campaigners have accused him
of squandering it.
Eder, now
63, served as colonel in the Bundeswehr. In 1999, he led a Bavarian armored
infantry battalion into Kosovo. Prior to his retirement in the autumn of 2016,
he served intermittently in the KSK. During the pandemic, he became one of the
leading figures of the radical protests against the government and its anti-coronavirus
measures.
At one
Querdenker demonstration, he demanded that KSK fighters should conduct a
"thorough purge in Berlin." He called mandatory vaccinations for
soldiers a "crime against humanity."
When a
flood in Rhineland-Palatinate inundated the Ahr Valley in July 2021, Eder and
his fellow campaigners cast themselves as helpers for people in distress. The
retired colonel appeared on the scene in uniform and signed official-looking
deployment orders with leading figures in the Querdenker movement. The supposed
helpers set up shop in Ahrweiler in a former school. Eder described himself as
the "leader of the command center" and to former elite soldier Peter
Wörner, also arrested this week, as the "chief of staff."
Rather than
helping, though, the men and their followers only created trouble in the flood
zone. In the end, the city had the school cleared out. Eder was fined 3,500
euros for the unauthorized wearing of uniforms.
The retired
officer grew increasingly radicalized. In November in a video filmed deep in
Bavaria, he called for a coup. In it, Eder can be seen standing in the middle
of the forest, in Bundeswehr camouflage, shaking a rock. If "a few
determined people" got to work, the system could be shaken up, he says in
it. And all this won't take much longer, the retired colonel says as if some
oracle, "it will be before Christmas." Now, he is being held in
pretrial detention.
Much of
what the Reuss troops are accused of having planned seems like something out of
a bad, feverish dream. In addition to a military arm, it is said to have had a
political arm that met at least five times this year: the so-called
"Council," a kind of shadow government.
The group
already appears to have reached agreement on some cabinet posts. Heinrich XIII
Prince Reuss was likely intended as head of state, and Judge Malsack-Winkemann
as justice minister. But as in real life, there appears to have been infighting
over power and posts in the shadow cabinet. According to the investigations,
the leadership of the finance ministry had been especially controversial. One
candidate some comrades would have liked to see on the "Council"
apparently isn't liked by Prince Reuss. And the candidate designated as
"foreign minister" apparently preferred to become finance minister.
The group
wasn't very successful in its foreign policy ambitions. An attempt to get
Russia's blessing for a coup failed. Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss and his
girlfriend Vitalia B., who is from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are said
to have paid visits to the Russian Consulate General in Leipzig, but according
to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, there is nothing to suggest that the
Russians "reacted positively to his request." Vitalia B.'s defense
lawyer initially didn't want to comment on the accusations.
Apparently,
there were hardly any bounds to the insanity of the political sect. According
to investigators, the group firmly believed in a supposed international secret
alliance, the "Alliance." The men and women are said to have waited
longingly for the "Alliance" to rush to their aid – and "clean
out" the upper echelons of the Federal Republic of Germany. Then they
could upend the rest of the country.
The
conspirators had also already filled some rather unusual posts in their shadow
government. The office of the representative for "spirituality and
healing" was to be led by a doctor from the state of Lower Saxony, who
reportedly gave the group 20,000 euros. Meanwhile, an astrologer from the
Bergstrasse district in the state of Hesse was to be responsible for "transcommunication."
About Our
Reporting
Like other
media, DER SPIEGEL reported very early on Wednesday morning about the police
action. Since then, we have been asked how we knew about it. The answer:
through contacts and sources. When ministries in 11 states and the federal
government, when dozens of Offices for the Protection of the Constitution and
state criminal investigation departments and thousands of officers are
involved, well-connected reporters are likely to hear about it. That’s not a
peculiarity of this case, it's our job. You have to handle this kind of
knowledge responsibly. We don't want to endanger anyone, because if a raid
escalates, you are putting human lives at risk. We only report comprehensively,
independently and unfettered when, in our view, the time is right.
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)
