Conspiracy ideologist Daniele Ganser compares herself to Sophie Scholl

Rostock, Aachen, Offenbach and Munich are just some of the cities where Daniele Ganser is currently stopping his tour. “Why did war break out in Ukraine?” is the question he wants to answer – but resistance to his events is rising in more and more cities.

The shows in Nuremberg and Dortmund have already been cancelled. The outrage is also getting louder in Kiel and state politicians report to T-Online that they have asked the organizer to withdraw Ganser’s invitation.

In just over a month, Ganser wants to appear with his program in the Wunderino Arena in Kiel. Not a good idea from the operator of the room Kai Dolgner of the SPD in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament. Ganser and his business model have been known for a long time since his crude 9/11 theorems, said Dolgner, his group’s domestic spokesman. Ganser succeeds in “marketing conspiracy rumors in a pseudoscientific context and helps spread conspiracy theories”.

cancellation requested

Politician Kai Dolgner demands the operators of the arena, Citti Handelsgesellschaft and the “Kieler Nachrichten” to “have the same courage” as the Dortmund Westfalenhalle “and cancel his performance, even accepting legal risks”.

He is not alone in this. He said two days ago CDU politician Tobias von der Heide to this topic. Von der Heide is State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and until recently was a member of the state parliament – ​​a political heavyweight. In an Instagram post, he also demands the show be cancelled. But he wrote the post on Instagram as district chairman of the CDU in Kiel.

Ganser’s office disagrees

The historian Daniele Ganser is from Switzerland and has repeatedly made questionable statements about the corona pandemic and other topics in the past. He compared the “fear of the pandemic” to the “fear of the dictatorship.”

Ganser’s event agency contradicts it: the Swiss advocate “peace, international understanding and non-violent coexistence in a fair, open society”. In his lectures, Ganser repeatedly emphasizes “that every human being belongs to the human family. He firmly rejects any form of devaluation, oppression, discrimination, exclusion and racism!”

“Form of Anti-Semitism”

As part of a documentation on Corona policy, Ganser spoke of the fact that there was “global madness” – an assessment he backs up with a Holocaust comparison. According to Ganser, his madness was local. “If you think carefully, the logic of his statements is: the unvaccinated are the new Jews. That too is a form of anti-Semitism,” she says Social psychologist Pia Lamberty.

Lamberty’s assessments are also followed by representatives of Jewish communities. Jo-Achim Hamburger of the Nuremberg Jewish Community accuses Ganser of downplaying Nazi crimes. “Therefore this person is not an innocent conspiracy entertainer.”

Rebecca Seidler, General Manager of the Liberal Jewish Community in HanoverGanser testifies to “gross conspiracy stories that often end in anti-Semitic language”.

Ganser himself rejects the criticism: he is not an anti-Semite. But when asked about T-Online’s coverage of his lectures being canceled, Ganser responded in a YouTube interview on Feb. 8 with a Sophie-Scholl comparison. He is asked how he still has the courage to continue despite the news.

persistent criticism

That the protest keeps German state politics occupied is unusual because the Wunderino Arena is not owned by the state or the city. Yet it also speaks the chairman of the internal and legal committee of the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein in addition.

Jan Kürschner (Greens) says Ganser’s lectures “inflame irrational fears with an insidious scam”. Kürschner especially sees the danger that the readings seem very reasonable at first, “then he consciously opts for branches in the world of conspiracy myths. It is not forbidden in the beginning.” Freedom of expression is an important asset that must be protected. “But the organizers must decide for themselves whether they want to encourage such tendencies or not.”

Kai Dolgner, former chair of the SPD’s interior and law working group and still a member of the Kiel state parliament, blows a similar horn: Freedom of expression does not mean that everyone should be given a platform to spread their “nonsense as unchallenged as possible – and still making money at the same time.”

Citti Handelsgesellschaft has not yet responded to T-Online’s request. The director of the Wunderino Arena told the “Kieler Nachrichten” a few days ago: “In the fall of 2022, we signed a contract for a lecture with Dr. Ganser, which is binding on us».

Sources

(t-online/dsc)