by Peter Löcke //
It is a federal authority within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Health.
We are talking about the Robert Koch Institute. Due to its politically subordinate role, the RKI faces a problem that I would like to compare and illustrate with a mathematical equation. In such an equation, the mathematical question is to the left of the equals sign. The problem. The open-ended RKI looks at the mathematical problem, calculates the solution and presents it to the public. Politicians look at the calculated solution to the right of the equals sign and draw conclusions or not. That's how it should be in theory. Everyone assumed this until 2020. But that's not the case.
As early as March 2020, critics expressed the suspicion that the supposedly independent RKI was spreading fear on behalf of politicians. Conspiracy theory at the time, proven reality today. In reality, the politically desired fear result was to the right of the equal sign. That was the initial calculation. The RKI's task was simply to find scientific arguments on the left-hand side of the equation that fit the desired fear result. What didn't fit was made to fit. At the end of November 2024, Süddeutsche, WDR & NDR exclusively found out what had been clear anyway since the RKI protocols were exposed by Paul Schreyer and later leaked in their entirety: The Robert Koch Institute was just a beadle of politics!
"Lauterbach denied the RKI for months to downgrade the corona risk"!
This is the title of Christina Berndt and Markus Grill's article in the SZ [1], which is hidden behind a paywall. Whether this is a desperate 180-degree turnaround by journalists who have acted as unofficial press spokespersons for the BMG for years is a question for everyone to answer for themselves. As a reminder? Christina Berndt was still certain in July that the RKI protocols were just hot air. There was no scandal.
"There's nothing to hide." That was the saying back then [2], but no longer today.
The RKI as a scientific institute has allowed itself to be politically instrumentalized. So this insight has reached the mainstream. But is it a scandal? I put up for discussion that the way the Robert Koch Institute works is not the exception, but the rule. The following is a list of scientific authorities, all of which are part of a ministry. Politically bound by instructions.
PEI & DIVI
In addition to the RKI, the PEI and the DIVI, the "German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine", were and still are criticized. The in April 2020 was responsible for recording treatment capacities in intensive care units [3]. Without delving deeper into the topic, the narrative of the threat of ICU overcrowding was the number one political fear scenario for years, justifying lockdowns and other coercive measures. Questions about the many contradictions in the register could be sent to an RKI email address. They were answered only vaguely or not at all.
The impossibility of scientific independence is particularly evident at the Paul Ehrlich Institute. The Institute had already advertised the safety of the vaccination on its website and in other publications in 2020. At the same time, pharmacovigilance is one of the PEI's tasks. The obvious problem? Nobody should be allowed to "fact-check" their own factual claims and advertising messages. If an authority claims in advance that the mRNA vaccination is safe and the same authority is supposed to be responsible for checking whether this is true, this cannot work. In March 2022, Andreas Schöfbeck, a long-standing board member of BKK ProVita, lost his job after sending a letter with critical questions to the PEI [4]. To this day, the PEI does not or does not want to do its job. The PEI and BMG do not answer questions about serious vaccination side effects, such as here [5] from ÄFI, the "Doctors for an individual vaccination decision", at all or with evasive generalities.
The Federal Statistical Office
The Federal Statistical Office, Destatis for short, is not part of the remit of the Ministry of Health. It is not. This federal authority is subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and thus to Nancy Faeser. Who is interested in such a politically irrelevant authority? I would probably have thought so five years ago. That has changed in the wake of corona. Since 2020, the topic of excess mortality has become a political issue. So if Destatis were to officially announce that a massive excess mortality rate has only become apparent since 2021, the political superiors at Destatis would have to answer uncomfortable questions. It would be naive to believe that this is really happening. What is certain is that critical statisticians such as Marcel Barz have been dealing with the topic of excess mortality for years and asking Destatis critical questions. These are questions that are usually answered in a friendly but mostly inadequate manner [6]. But enough about authorities bound by instructions that play a dubious role in the corona complex.
The Federal Network Agency
The Federal Network Agency is officially an autonomous and independent higher federal authority. That reads well. It is a federal authority within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection. From here on, one can become suspicious. One thing is certain: In October, the Federal Network Agency implemented the EU's controversial "Digital Service Act" (DSA) and appointed "REspect!" [7], the first so-called "trusted flagger". According to the official interpretation, the state and trustworthy whistleblowers fight illegal content, illegal hate and illegal fake news online [8]. Critics see this cooperation as an unconstitutional censorship mania by a state that resorts to Stasi methods [9]. Politically piquant? The President of the Federal Network Agency is Klaus Müller, a Green politician. Müller's agency is subordinate to the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Robert Habeck, a Green politician. The REspect! reporting portal is financed by the Ministry of Family Affairs. This is headed by Lisa Paus, a Green politician. So is the Federal Network Agency really an autonomous and independent authority?
The German Weather Service (*)
The German Weather Service (DWD) is a federal agency under public law with partial legal capacity. Aha! The authority is part of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport. This information is even more exciting. The DWD is also subordinate to a federal ministry, so it has a political supervisory authority. Bound by instructions. Who cares about the politically irrelevant DWD? I would have thought the same five years ago. That has changed since the DWD has increasingly developed into a DKD, a climate service [10]. A quick glance at the federal authority's website will suffice. "Weather and climate from a single source / current climate forecasts / urban climate projections" is one of the things I can read there. Even as a "merely interested layman", one can become suspicious here and ask fundamental questions of the DWD. Have the measuring stations changed in recent decades and have the measuring methods really remained constant? Are the temperature measurements comparable? Is the definition of the so-called heat day really reliable? How reliable are future projections, aka modeling, which often proved to be completely wrong even during corona? One thing is certain: The topic of climate has enormous political explosiveness. The DWD is anything but independent. It is bound by instructions.
Conclusion
Not only the RKI, but also a number of other federal authorities, are at least in danger of being politically instrumentalized. The deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the more the question arises as to which institutions work independently at all. One gets the impression that the sole purpose of many federal authorities is to give politically desired goals a scientific veneer.
Scandal, the federal authority RKI, which is bound by instructions, was only a beadle of politics! Perhaps this angry realization should be rephrased as a question: Which federal authority is not a beadle of politics?
Image accompanying the article: DWD in Offenbach
Sources:
[3] https://www.intensivregister.de/#/index
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14 Responses
And what about the Federal Cartel Office? They are also on a political leash - it's all just sham democracy!
Whose money I take, whose song I sing !
q.e.d.
Science today is just as venal as a street hooker or a political actor. If they swim against the tide, they are fired or their funding is cut.
Vergessen wurde in der Aufzählung der weisungsgebundenen Bundesbehörden der Verfassungsschutz. Dieser untersteht ebenfalls dem Bundesinnenministeriums, also Frau Faeser … Wundert’s da noch jemanden, was so alles als „gesichert rechtsextrem“ etikettiert wird?
Hm, somehow my contribution didn't get through. So in a nutshell: How can you get the idea that a federal authority is independent? It is the essence of federal authorities not to be. In "our democracy", the party oligarchy simply controls everything.
Another problem is that the so-called 4th estate was always just a myth. If it had been otherwise, it would have been for those responsible to act in this way.
Federal authorities ARE a political instrument. That is their essence. That they have been used since Merkel to fight enemies in the old socialist tradition, well, that was obvious. Federal authorities are also organized hierarchically. In other words, you only have to fill the upper echelons with puppets and you can bring any policy to the people. The only effort in this process is that there is no one in the institutions to play with the fire of truth. But this is not too difficult in a hierarchical structure. If you then have the media as politically under control as the federal authorities, nothing stands in the way of lying. Politically non-independent public prosecutors then do the rest. The fact that I am still allowed to write this so openly here is due to the fact that political corruption and cadaver obedience are already so inherent in the system that what I write is no longer relevant at all.
...plays with the fire of truth (see Stephan Kohn, Senior Government Councillor).
Thank you for your clear words!
And where is the so-called independent judge in this theater? He is attached to the same umbilical cord. This closes the circle and the circular argument is complete.
I guess it was nothing to do with the separation of powers, it should actually be called separation of powers, but the mafia also has a separation of powers. The mafia boss can't do the work all by himself.
Sorry for my mistake, of course the mafia is also called the separation of powers. Nothing is separated here either.
Correction: it should mean that the mafia also has a separation of powers and no separation.
Sorry for my mistake in the wording.
Es ist fürwahr völlig überraschend, dass eine weisungsgebunden Behörde – nun ja – weisungsgebunden ist. So überraschend, dass die sogenannte „Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit“ dies seit ihrem Bestehen noch nicht bemerkt hat. Mit einer Ausnahme: Dem Präsidenten des VG Osnabrück ist die maßlose Enttäuschung über diese – m.E. banale – Erkenntnis in der Vorlageentscheidung zum Bundesverfassungsgericht wegen der „einrichtungsbezogenen Impfpflicht“ sowohl in Pressemitteilung als auch den Leitsätzen der Entscheidung so deutlich anzumerken, dass man sich doch fragen muss: Wie unbedarft und ignorant ist wohl der Normalbürger, wenn die Mitglieder der zur Kontrolle der Exekutive berufenen Richterschaft zum Maßstab genommen werden?
Obviously, the average citizen can do little against all this infiltration. If anyone has a brilliant idea, I'll be there in a heartbeat.
It all leaves you speechless and disillusioned with no end in sight....
I have an idea... If you want to play state, you should first separate the powers and not divide them. Everyone should also finance themselves on their own account. Then sensible rules of the game would have to be worked out that unite the battle cry of freedom, equality and universality. I deliberately mention universality and not fraternity, because we have known since Cain and Abel that fraternity can also backfire.
How about a beginning, a guiding principle, an axiom?
All people have the same right to the free development of their lives!
And now we just need to involve the general public. This requires universally valid and immovable prohibitions. Not commandments, because these always involve coercion, threats and blackmail.
That would be a start, an idea