Buckle up, folks... this is a long one.
The background of RFK Jr.’s litigation against Kos Media seeking pre-lawsuit discovery is well-known to this community, having been addressed by kos himself here, here, here and here. Kennedy’s petition hinges on two claims of “fact” (Westchester [NY] Supreme Court, Index Number 65319/2020, PETITION, 30 November 2020, §5-8): first, that Kennedy did not in fact “join” with right-wing extremists (including neo-Nazis) at a protest in Berlin on 29 August 2020 and, second, that the Berlin protest at which Kennedy spoke was not in fact organized by right-wing extremist organizations. In my view, the glaring failure of Kennedy’s statement of these two “facts”—on which his entire claim of defamation relies—is that German journalists and activists were already attuned to three phenomena: 1) the right-wing extremist orientation of a significant percentage of the protesters to whom Kennedy spoke; 2) the right-wing extremist affiliation of Stephan Bergmann, the press spokesperson of Querdenken (the “Lateral Thinking” movement, whose invitation Kennedy accepted); and 3) the dog-whistling rhetoric of Michael Ballweg, the nominal leader of Querdenken, to right-wing extremists as well as Ballweg’s indifference to the presence of right-wing extremists within the ranks of the movement and among the roster of speakers at Querdenken-organized protests.
Let’s begin with the invitation from Querdenken for Kennedy to speak at the protest on 29 August 2020. Here’s the polished damage-control version of the circumstances of the invitation as presented on the website of Kennedy’s anti-vaxx misinformation organization Children's Health Defense on 10 September 2020:
In reality, Kennedy’s presence at the protest had not been scheduled. Kennedy, the board chair of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit organization in the U.S dedicated to the protection of children’s health, was scheduled to attend the inaugural meeting of the CHD European branch, Children’s Health Defense Europe. It was a bit of a coincidence of the calendar that led to his participation in the event as he was travelling to Europe anyway to meet with the Board of Directors to discuss different strategic directions for the new chapter. The message from the organizers then reached him, with a video showing a public invitation at the August 1st demonstration. The travel of members of an international organization to attend a joint meeting is not subject to COVID travel restrictions, so Kennedy’s visit to Berlin was perfectly legitimate. A speech by the famous lawyer was obviously a perfect opportunity to both announce the launch of the association and to convey a strong message of freedom and democracy to the German public.
Here’s the sequence of invitations as documented in the Daily Beast article “Inside the Weird Pro-QAnon German Group Behind RFK Jr.’s Latest Anti-Vaxx Stunt” on 02 September 2020:
Querdenken 711, whose name loosely translates to “Thinking Outside the Box 711,” had tried to invite other controversial world leaders to the rally before landing Kennedy. On Aug. 7, the group’s Twitter account tweeted at Donald Trump, calling him “the only American President who has not started a war,” despite his record escalating the U.S.’s foreign conflicts, and cordially invited him “to speak on the subject of ‘peace.’” Three days later, the account tweeted at Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, asking him, too, to speak about “Peace in Europe,” apparently ignoring Russia’s intervention in Eastern Ukraine. (Members of Querdenken’s many Telegram channels noted that Putin might be too busy with the escalating tensions in Belarus to attend.)
In a last-ditch effort to score a major speaker outside of their own ranks, the group finally tweeted at Kennedy, asking him to join them on stage for “freedom and peace” on Aug. 19. Kennedy had already signaled his interest in the growing “anti-COVID” movement in Germany. On Aug. 11, his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense, published a letter by an anonymous “Friend in Germany” on the organization’s website. Four days later, Querdenken 711 founder Michael Ballweg offered an official public invitation during a speech in Hamburg.
While it’s amusing that Kennedy was the third choice of speaker behind Trump and Putin, what is important for present purposes is the evidence that the official invitation was issued by Querdenken’s Michael Ballweg on 15 August 2020. In their description of the anti-Corona protest in Berlin on 01 August 2020 in the “Rally in Berlin” post published on the Children’s Health Defense site, the “anonymous friend in Germany” provided ample evidence of the Qanon-style tinfoil-wrapped nuttery of the Querdenken protest movement:
more and more people are waking up to the fact that they do not want to be guinea pigs for Gates’ experimental vaccine.
[...]
The other thing “they” did in Berlin was to interfere with everyone’s phones and cameras, so that it seemed like the protest could not be live-streamed to contradict the media narrative.
[...]
There have been leaks from “government insiders” that the “second wave and lockdown” are already planned for mid September, and they will go on for much longer than the first.
They also provided a clue to political elements within the movement, a clue which Kennedy chose to ignore:
Mainstream media proclaimed many hours before the protest that it was made up of a few crazy “Nazis, conspiracy theorists and corona-deniers” then dispersed by the police.
Indeed, one sensible (if woefully optimistic) commenter in the replies to Querdenken’s tweet inviting Kennedy to Berlin opined on 23 August 2020:
I hardly think that a Kennedy shows himself at a demo where neo-Nazis are leading the way.
Regrets? That commenter had a few after Kennedy accepted Querdenken’s invitation:
I have to revise myself. I never would have thought that this [Kennedy] family would give us an intellectual low-flyer of Trumpian dimension.
Also of note in the “Rally in Berlin” post is the first linked YouTube video entitled “Stephan Bergmann versucht Polizisten zum Helden zu machen” (“Stephan Bergmann attempts to make Heroes of the Police”) published on Bergmann’s Motherdrum YouTube channel. The text caption to the video translates to “on the Day of Freedom [Querdenken’s name for the protest on 01 August 2020], the police broke up the protest of at least 1.3M participants. The man in the red shirt [Bergmann’s nickname] tries to prevent it.” Why does this matter? Because it neatly binds together Kennedy, the invitation from Querdenken and two specific named individuals (Ballweg, Querdenken’s nominal leader, and Bergmann, Querdenken’s official press spokesperson) two weeks prior to the event. That should have been ample time for Kennedy to properly vet Querdenken and its organizational leadership (Ballweg, Bergmann) who promoted the event and issued the invitation(s).
Indeed, had Kennedy chosen to vet the organization and actors with whom he chose to associate on 29 August 2020 he could have noted that in the days before Querdenken’s 01 August 2020 protest event in Berlin the German media and activists were already documenting the organizing initiatives by not just freakshow anti-vaxxers and conspiracists but also by right-wing extremists:
Stephan Bergmann, the press spokesman of the Stuttgart initiative Querdenken, has already made clear his thoughts of the current safety regulations: Corona is a “fake virus” made up by “fake scientists.” “The government does not want to protect lives, but to introduce communism. Fuck the social-distance requirement!” Bergmann says.
Officially, it is stated [by Querdenken] that right-wing extremist thought has no place in this movement. But the roster of planned speakers contradicts this. The writer Thorsten Schulte is scheduled to appear. Last month [01 June 2020, in Dresden] Schulte spoke before Pegida [right-wing ethno-nationalist extremist organization], warning of a multicultural Europe and of mass migration under Jewish influence [including George Soros].
[...]
In addition to the initiators [Querdenken], the right-wing extremist magazine “Compact”, monitored [as an extremist group] by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is calling for a trip to Berlin. The right-wing extremist group “Patriotic Opposition Europe” and the NPD are also mobilizing. The initiator [Ballweg] did not answer a request from Tagesspiegel as to whether their supporters are welcome on Saturday.
Had Kennedy chosen to vet the organizations and actors whose invitation he chose to accept, he may also have noted the disturbing right-wing extremist history of Querdenken’s official spokesperson Stephan Bergmann, as for instance documented in this article from 31 July 2020. As detailed in the article, Bergmann’s social media history is a dumpster-fire of promotion of right-wing white-nationalist concepts such as “The Great Replacement” and “The Islamization of Europe” as well as promotion of content from Jürgen Elsässer’s Compact publication (the mouthpiece of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland [AfD] party) and promotion of content by right-wing extremist and antisemitic individuals such as Christoph Hörstel and the neo-Nazi Sven Liebich. Not convinced yet? Well, let’s watch Stephan Bergmann give a big welcoming hug to right-wing extremist Nikolai Nerling on 01 August 2020, in front of the anti-Corona protest stage in Berlin. Bergmann is the troll in the red shirt. Nerling, aka “the People’s Teacher,” is a documented antisemite, Holocaust denier and Nazi-apologist.
Had Kennedy chosen to vet the organizations and actors whose invitation he chose to accept, he may also have noted the dissembling words of Querdenken’s nominal leader Michael Ballweg with respect to the affiliation of Querdenken with right-wing extremist organizations and individuals. Ballweg mouths the words that neither right-wing nor left-wing extremism (how’s that for some bothsiderist bullshit?) are welcome in the Querdenken movement, yet his persistent unwillingness when asked to condemn Bergmann’s obvious right-wing extremist history, or offer timely condemnations of the appearances of Nerling or Schulte (among others) at Querdenken-affiliated protest events, or condemn the participation of cadres from right-wing parties and organizations (AfD, NPD, etc.) at Querdenken-organized protest events… well, his silence speaks loudly to acceptance and complicity. Moreover, Ballweg himself has thrown red meat to right-wing extremists by wielding the rhetoric of the Reichsbürger movement:
[O]n August 8th, 2020, Ballweg used the sovereigntist dog-whistle “peace treaty” to outline his plans. He claimed to be in discussion with constitutional lawyers to clarify the question of Germany’s “peace treaty”. The conspiracist myth of the “missing peace treaty” claims that Germany or the German Reich should technically still be at war, since it doesn’t have a peace treaty. The apparent non-war situation in the Federal Republic is portrayed as the result of a secret worldwide conspiracy against the Germans that has been going on for decades, or even for the past century. At the end of his speech in Stuttgart, Ballweg asked the participants to google “peace treaty”, which would consequently lead them to far-right sovereigntist / “Reichsbürger” websites and YouTube channels, reinforcing their conspiracy ideology worldview.
The Reichsbürger movement is anti-state, anti-constitution, conspiracist and often antisemitic:
While some individual Reichsbürger members may be motivated largely by the wish to evade taxation and other costs, the ideological foundation of the movement can be traced back to a right-wing extremist worldview, including racist and antisemitic beliefs. Reichsbürger have called the Federal Republic of Germany a “Zionist-freemason conspiracy” and some perceive the German government as controlled by Zionist forces. This is a clear indication that the ideology of the Reichsbürger movement builds upon the antisemitic beliefs of a Jewish world conspiracy already popular in the Nazi era.
Finally, had Kennedy chosen to vet Querdenken, Bergmann and Ballweg he may have noted that in addition to the red-shirted troll Bergmann hugging antisemitic Holocaust denier Nikolai Nerling at the Berlin protest on 01 August 2020, Ballweg himself was photographed having a conversation with Nerling at a smaller protest at the Brandenberg Gate the following day, a meeting that was captured by photographer Björn Kietzmann despite attempts by a security employee to screen them from the camera with an umbrella. Ballweg claimed on 01 September 2020 never to have met Nerling, which was clearly a lie. Only later in September did Ballweg issue a tepid disavowal of Nerling.
There was thus ample evidence—even prior to Kennedy’s acceptance of the invitation to speak at the protest event on 29 August 2020—of right-wing extremism among both key players within Querdenken (Ballweg, Bergmann) and other organizations and movements planning and mobilizing for the event in Berlin (AfD, NPD, Reichsbürgers, neo-Nazis et cetera, et cetera). The white-washed description of Querdenken in Kennedy’s Petition misses this reality altogether:
In truth, Petitioner gave a speech on August 29, 2020 decrying Nazism and totalitarianism of all kinds at the Protest for Peace and Freedom in Berlin, initiated by the group Querdenken—a democratic movement whose name means “lateral thinking” and that vehemently opposes all forms of fascism and extremism.
“Opposes all forms of extremism”? Yeah, not so much. Conspiracy theories and right-wing extremism are baked into the Querdenken phenomenon, and it is not possible to maintain the fiction that the movement opposes fascism and extremism when in fact the movement’s leadership instrumentalizes the demonstrations to normalize right-wing extremism. Indeed, shortly after the 01 August 2020 protest in Berlin a group of parliamentarians asked the German government for information on the extent to which right-wing extremists were implicated in the Corona-protests. The official government reply was issued after the 29 August protest event at which Kennedy spoke, and addressed it directly:
According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, more than 90 rallies against Corona rules have taken place nationwide since the end of April, with right-wing extremists setting the tone.
[…]
Among the tens of thousands of demonstrators who protested against the Corona restrictions in Berlin on the last weekend in August, there were also larger groups of so-called Reich citizens with corresponding T-shirts, banners, chants and leaflets. A few smaller groups of right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis were also clearly recognizable.
"If fascists were already tolerated at the earlier maverick and Corona protests, the Reich Citizens' Movement and crude conspiracy ideologues in particular succeeded in shaping parts of the demonstration with their flags, symbols and slogans on August 29," commented the domestic policy spokeswoman for the left faction, Ulla Jelpke. This is "a dangerous development that the federal government continues to underestimate".
We can also cite the remarks prepared by Frank Dittrich, the Deputy Head of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg :
In the case of the Querdenken movement, there are real indications that anti-constitutional efforts are being pursued by this organization. [...] The goals of this group are directed toward the elimination or invalidation of fundamental principles of free democratic order.
In sum, Kennedy is wrong in his statement of “facts” that he did not “join” with right-wing extremists (including neo-Nazis) at a protest in Berlin on 29 August 2020 and that the Berlin protest at which he spoke was not organized at least in part by right-wing extremist organizations and individuals.
He did, and they were. And it’s not just with the benefit of hindsight that the convergence of anti-vaxxers, antisemites, New Agers, neo-Nazis, Qanon, Reichsbürgers and right-wing extremist movements under the aegis of Querdenken is apparent. German media and activists meticulously demonstrated that right-wing extremism has been baked into the Querdenken phenomenon all along and the evidence for that was available prior to Kennedy’s acceptance to join Ballweg on that stage in Berlin.
Face it, Kennedy. You got burned by your opportunistic acceptance of an invitation to speak at the event on 29 August 2020 without doing the due diligence to assess what you were getting into and with whom you were choosing to ally. You can’t dismiss the right-wing extremists waving the Reich flags on the steps of the Reichstag or the neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists participating in the demonstration as being peripheral to the event—as both you and Ballweg would have it—when there is evidence of connections between the extremist groups and Querdenken, evidence of connections between individual extremists and Querdenken’s leadership (Ballweg and Bergmann), evidence of right-wing extremist rhetoric by Querdenken’s leadership and evidence that numerous right-wing groups including neo-Nazis promoted Querdenken and organized their odious memberships to join the protest that day.
You got burned in your zeal to spread your misinformation to Covidiots in the name of Freedumb, you stood on that stage next to Ballweg and lent your name to Querdenken, you were rightly called out for it and now you’re attempting to cover your ass by ignoring the facts and by punching down. It’s not a good look… but it’s also exactly what I’d expect from you.
