German State Propaganda Against the Rise of the Right-Wing?

Why has the Austrian FPÖ/Russian corruption scandal resurfaced?

In this era of warmongers and brainwashed followers, it’s worth revisiting the scandal that brought down the Austrian government in 2019. We don’t have a choice because DW, Germany’s state television network, recently released an English version of their 2021 Ibiza Affair documentary.

'Behind the Headlines' is a non-flashy education and intriguing miseducation. The former is for those, like me, who are interested in the nuts and bolts; the challenges and questions before a big story gets broken. I’ll get to the latter later.

Edward Snowden, a whistleblower I greatly admire, starts us off by saying that:

"There's a kind of journalism that's been used actively to mislead and misinform the Public. These liberal and open societies that we inherited, they're not guaranteed. They only exist through the collective efforts of many people. We are entering this darker moment, that every can see, everybody can feel - things are changing. And if we don't stop that. If journalists don't think on that scale, where is that going to lead us?"

The Ibiza Affair

The main topic of the documentary involves then Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus, members of the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ), who were secretly filmed in 2017. This became known as the Ibiza Affair. The humiliation suspiciously happened in 2019, just before the European Parliament election.

Strache and Gudenus are shown trying to get money from the ‘niece’ of Russian oligarch, Igor Makarov. They wanted to buy control in a major Austrian tabloid for favourable election coverage, get certain journalists fired after the elections, and promised state contracts for the investor.

We're shown how the journalists, Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier (who were nobly involved in exposing the Panama Papers), agonise over the legalities of using  material from an informant that wants to remain anonymous, versus it being in the Public's interest. Their reporting about this shook Austria.

I watched ‘Behind the Headlines’ on DW’s YouTube channel but could not find it when I returned to grab the link for embedding here. But it still appears on their website. [since this article was posted, it has been removed].

Watch it before reading my next paragraph. Furthermore, alone, the theme of verifying evidence is an important subject.

The Twisted Truth

There's a twist in this tale which the documentary fails to mention.

I'm not faulting the journalists who received sensational information, tormented themselves over its purpose, and then moved forward. My opinion would change depending on how more they knew than was shared, and how much the editors and owners of their newspapers, Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, controlled the narrative. I can only proceed with known facts.

I'm mostly questioning the purpose of DW’s new release and wondering if there's hidden agenda.

Why does the documentary begin with the danger whistleblowers and journalists face? On Youtube, that was reiterated with the altered title, ‘The Dangers of Journalism’. That’s further emphasised with seconds of an interview with Snowden, in a hotel room so that we’re reminded of him being on the run, when he was interviewed in a Hong Kong hotel room, after he’d exposed America’s illegal mass surveillance program. Ironically, he’s not stressed and they’re meeting in Russia.

Truth seekers and revealers are dear to my heart, but its only purpose here seems to be to set a mood that puts the viewer on the side of brave journalists versus corrupt politicians. In retrospect, the main story should have stood, less emotively, alone. Considering that Snowden wasn’t interviewed regarding the Ibiza Affair, his warning words were abused into giving the documentary fake credibility.

That the clandestine footage was withheld for 2 years defines it as Kompromat (real or manufactured evidence held not for justice but for advantageous usage against one’s enemy or opposition at the most useful time). The situation becomes egregious when noting that the entire Ibiza recording has never been shown publicly.

The necessity for full disclosure is dictated by a partial transcript of an unseen portion of the video surfacing from the prosecutor’s office in 2020, even before the German version of the documentary.

In it, Strache spectacularly contradicts the guilty version of events:

"No, no. But now let's be honest. Any other shit makes you vulnerable, and I don't want to be vulnerable. I want to sleep peacefully. I want to get up in the morning and say I'm clean."

Gudenus says:

"We are not doing anything illegal, period."

The act of refusing corruption is an astonishing omission for journalism proving corruption. It’s possible that the subjects backtracked when they realised they were walking into a trap, but that’s not evidence for conviction nor the downfall of an elected government. It should only have been the first half of a documentary.

It's interesting that Strache was found guilty on unrelated bribery charges but then acquitted on appeal earlier this year.

The Manipulation of a Democracy

The insidious fact is that Ibiza was a trap!

Ramin Mirfakhrai, an Iranian-born Austrian attorney, admitted that he commissioned the secret video. Julian Hessenthaler, a German detective set up the sting. According to the Kronen Zeitung newspaper, Mirfakhrai sold it for €600,000 to an organisation that is yet to be named. Assumedly, it is they that approached the journalists. As further thorn in the story, it is alleged that a Bosnian student played the role of the oligarch's fake niece.

The campaign against Strache and the FPÖ was temporarily and chaotically successful.

The Austrian coalition government collapsed as result of the Ibiza Affair. Strache and Gudenus were forced to resign, and support for the FPÖ plummeted. Strache started a new party but is far from regaining his stature.

4 years later, the Public remains in fog of politics, Strache and Gudenus have yet to be found guilty, and no one has been held responsible for the destruction of a democratic government and the misleading of its citizenry.

Hessenthaler, however, was jailed in 2021 for possession of drugs and fake documents. On release, he was treated as a hero by the left and a criminal by the right.

Manufactured Hate

My desire for Ukrainians getting the government that upholds its promises makes me angry at the foreign-sponsored overthrow of its 2014 leadership. It was a push off the edge of civilisation, towards forced conscription and the ensuing bloodletting between countries that used to be family.

The Ukrainian State banned the Polish movie ‘Wolyn’ (a.k.a. ‘Hate’ and ‘Volhynia’) in 2016. It would’ve reminded Ukrainians how they were conditioned into the torture and murder of their neighbours during and after WW2. There were enemies everywhere. The Russians, Germans and Poles took their turns killing. But the Ukrainian Banderites, now normalised by Zelensky, were the worst. Without Azov and their ilk worshipping the likes of Stepan Bandera, there wouldn’t have been an army to fight NATO’s war.

There’s a scene involving a small child being tied between hay bundles, and then set alight whilst his mother watches helplessly. For me, that’s become a metaphor for the average Ukrainian on fire between local corruption and foreign neoliberalism. If you think I’m taking it too far, the post-war limbless and mentally scarred will prove which of us is wrong.

Anti-war and anti-NATO voices, moral or opportunistic, must not be silenced.

Democracies Fall but Populists Dare Not Score

I'm not Austrian and don't support the FPÖ. My belief in gay and immigrant rights is irrelevant to my interest in the manipulation of democracy, and the role of mainstream media (MSM) therein.

The rise of the far right in Europe is backlash for the USA’s excessive liberal ideas seemingly being more important to the European Union (EU) than protecting its own citizens and respecting the cultures of its member states? The Public is fed-up with their politicians being functionaries of the USA and the EU, especially regarding NATO-generated immigration and economic crises.

It’s indisputable that many are not happy with their States supporting NATO’s war in Ukraine yet the Media gives little coverage to those protests. There are people who don’t see Russia as their enemy, and there are those who support Ukraine but don’t accept that war is more important than attempts at ending it.

DW’s documentary is funded by the German state. I cannot say that its related but why release a new version now, when the FPÖ have recovered from the scandal, with polls indicating 23% support? This is the party that was made infamous for its walkout from parliament this year, in protest at Zelensky being given a platform to speak. They were right because Austria is supposed to be a neutral country, just like Switzerland proudly was.

In a press release, the FPÖ stated that:

“It’s sad that the FPÖ is the only party in parliament that takes our ever-lasting neutrality seriously, thereby also standing up for peace.”

Germany’s rulers must worry that the ‘Rise in German far-right [also] reflects growing sentiment against Ukraine war’.

“Nationally, the AfD is now polling at 19 percent, just under Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, polling at 20 percent.

The sudden changes can be partially explained by the significant political and economic upheaval the country is experiencing as the result of the war in Ukraine and Germany’s response to it.”

Germany and Austria are entwined. The worst in the left could result in the worst on the right. Neighbouring anti-war populism can bolster each other, ignite a spark that removes false liberals, the supporters of neocon war, from power. Without Germany, NATO would struggle to exist.

Modern Democracy

America is the defender of global democracy, not the biggest weapons manufacturer making a massive profit.

NATO is a defensive organisation, having never attacked any country in Europe or elsewhere.

Corporations don’t make profit for their sake, they’re innovators guiding us to a better future.

The Media is our truthteller, never speaking on behalf of politicians, only giving us facts so that we can make up our own minds.

Or is it…

Hundreds of thousands of dead in Ukraine. Peacemakers invisible whilst never-ending bombs are downloaded from the European Union and the USA. Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine seek a bigger battlefield whilst the possibility of continental war is absorbed less by the Public than an advert for tampons.

This is the age of incontinence, a leaking of courage and empathy. Those that speak up are valuable, whether they’re liberals or conservative populists. It’s not democracy when we illegally destroy those we disagree with, particularly when the Media do it for us.

Snowden was right. I’m repeating him in the hope that DW hears what he said in the right context, and act as doers and not war apologists:

"There's a kind of journalism that's been used actively to mislead and misinform the Public. These liberal and open societies that we inherited, they're not guaranteed. They only exist through the collective efforts of many people. We are entering this darker moment, that every can see, everybody can feel - things are changing. And if we don't stop that. If journalists don't think on that scale, where is that going to lead us?"

PS: Surrounded by insanity, I take joy in little beauties. As I neared the end of this article, I was unwittingly given two cans of Eichbaum. There’s that saying that the news should be taken with a grain of salt, but I’m telling you that it’s much better with German beer.