Claims by a German state-funded, left-wing media outlet about a conspiracy to conduct the mass deportation of migrants have been shattered in court. A ruling by a court in Hamburg prohibits public broadcasters from repeating the allegation that the expulsion of German citizens of foreign origin was discussed by participants at a meeting in Potsdam last November.
As we reported at the beginning of the year, Correctiv, a partly state-funded investigative website, made explosive claims of a top-level meeting between members of the anti-globalist opposition AfD party, the right-wing Identitarian Movement, and the centre-right CDU, alleging the existence of a right-wing plot 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.’
It later turned out that the publication—which in its article drew a historical parallel between the participants of the Potsdam meeting and the Nazis—had deceptively misreported the event, grossly exaggerating the topic of the discussions. The meeting had actually focused on a more restrictive migration policy, involving stricter border controls and the deportation of rejected asylum seekers and illegal immigrants—topics not unusual for anti-immigration parties.
“They spoke of ‘remigration,’ specifically and legitimately referring to millions of people who are illegally present here, that they should be ‘remigrated’—returned. That is legal and legitimate, and we can demand that. And there is nothing wrong or reprehensible about it,” AfD MEP Joachim Kuhs, who was not a participant at the Potsdam meeting, previously told The European Conservative.
It was also revealed that the managing director of Correctiv, the self-proclaimed “independent investigative journalism network” met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and officials from the left-wing federal government days before the Potsdam meeting, to “exchange ideas” on what coverage was desirable.
One of the participants of the Potsdam meeting, constitutional law expert and legal representative of the AfD Ulrich Vosgerau decided to take legal action against Correctiv and other news outlets for repeating the false allegations against him. Vosgerau won both court cases, with the most recent ruling in Hamburg stating that the claim made by public broadcasters ARD and NDR that the expulsion of German citizens of foreign origin was discussed at the meeting in Potsdam, is untrue.
Announcing the court decision on his X account, Ulrich Vosgerau said Correctiv’s article was nothing more than a “fictitious play” which dreamed up alleged deportation plans, and wrongly associated a private meeting of friends with historical events in the Third Reich.