Unsafe Schools: FidK-Germany

Germany's parallel campaign to Us For Them

Aug 17, 2022

Same Campaign, Different Country

There is a parents’ group that started near the end of April calling for all students to return to education while opposing all protective measures including . The group is widely promoted by lockdown sceptic, gets a disproportionate amount of media time despite its fringe views, ignores long covid and the risk posed to clinically vulnerable families and staff. While genuine grassroots groups have failed to gain the attention of politicians this newly formed sceptic group which relies on a misleading and cherry picked evidence base has extensive political connections and appears to be incredibly well resourced considering it claims to be financed by small donations from concerned parents, funding legal challenges against measures like masks in school.

Not Us for Them, although those in the UK would be forgiven for thinking so, such are the parallels, no this is a group in Germany organisation FidK. In the Winter of 2020 some of the Counter Disinformation Project’s writing on Us for Them began being shared in Germany and soon notes were being compared with journalists and campaigners.

FidK Origins

Annette Bulut, a German journalist, is one of those I contacted and we have been in regular contact ever since comparing disinformation between the UK and Germany. The following comes mainly from her work.

"Families in Crisis" (FidK) is actually a small group. The initiative has around 250 members. Until recently, she called for schools and daycare centres to be opened – regardless of the incidence value. The FidK seems, as the former chairman of the Federal Parents' Council Stephan Wassmuth criticises, "rather to be a group that only represents a small group of parents. Similar to lobbyists.” Nevertheless, "families in crisis" is omnipresent. In the media they are a goliath. Perhaps that's because the small force has a remarkably savvy PR team.

The roots of "Families in Crisis" (Fidk) lie in April 2020, in the middle of the first lockdown in Germany. A few mothers with small children got together to set up “Eltern in der Kriis” (EidK). They started a Facebook group to find like-minded people: mothers and fathers who are struggling to juggle working from home and childcare.

EidK spokeswoman Wenzel, recently self-employed "Senior Communications Consultant" and previously director at the communications agency Biscuit CNC, gathered a remarkable group of founding members from the outset. "Girlfriends," as she says. Six women, some aristocratic, apparently very successful business women and all with small children.

Apparently there were a lot of them. After a few days, thousands of those affected gathered here. One of the founding members, Karline Wenzel, wrote after about two weeks: "Wonderful, we already have 10,000 members." By February the Facebook group had around 14,000 members, which is unusual for a grassroots group to have such a large initial influx of members before almost stalling in growth after two weeks. Us For Them’s Facebook growth charts a near identical course.

On 7 May 2020, less than three weeks after it was founded, the group had direct access to a top politician. There was a zoom conference with Federal Family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD). On the same day, Giffey also had a zoom conference with the newly founded initiative "Children need children". It is at least unusual that two previously completely unknown parents' initiatives get an appointment with a federal minister.

Instant Media Profile

In the meantime, the Facebook group “Parents in Crisis” become a popular place for editors when looking for interview partners: RBB needed parents for a “small picture of the mood” , the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” was looking for protagonists here, Sat.1 too , recently also BR and SWR

FidK also appeared prominently early on in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a centre right conservative paper, in an article published on 13 June 2020 about Diane Siegloch and two of her colleagues from Wiesbaden. Siegloch is the driving force behind the initiative in Hesse and its founder. About the FidK, which had only existed for a few weeks at that time, the text said: "... women are beginning to see themselves as the voice for all families in Germany." The group had already zoomed in with the former Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Kristina Schröder.

This was seen as an expression of its relevance, although it could be seen as suspicious that an initiative just founded was able to gain access so quickly to a former federal minister, who is now a columnist for Die Welt, a conservative paper, and ambassador for the lobby giant “Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft” ( INSM), a free market think tank which emphasises competitiveness, individual responsibility and campaigns against measures to tackle climate change.

The Split

However, the group “Families in Crisis” around Diane Siegloch split off from “Eltern in Crisis” after a very short time.

"Parents in Crisis" founder Karline Wenzel actively distanced herself: "We are not 'families in crisis'," she wrote on Facebook explaining the separation:

“At the time, we clarified objectively and in mutual agreement with later members of 'Families in Crisis' that the goals and measures behind our concerns differ and that it is therefore better for us to take different paths. We watched a demonstration that we didn't organise ourselves. After that, we from 'Parents in Crisis' decided together to distance ourselves from this otherwise legitimate means of expressing our opinion, so as not to be associated with Corona deniers or trivialises."

So a small group concerned about getting children back to school, had a rapid influx of more militant members pushing a narrative more akin to covid denialism and started organising demonstrations that made the initial members so uncomfortable they felt the need to separate and distance themselves from what become Fidk, I’m reminded of the strategy outlined by the Koch network lieutenant which included taking over other organisations to provide their astroturf organisation an authentic grassroots shell, one of the best examples being the National Rifle Association in the US that was originally a marksmanship club promoting safe gun use until entryists warped it into its modern day AR15 toting radicalised incarnation.

Perhaps this is what happened with Us for Them, a few mums decided to campaign for their children to return to school and were quickly leapt on by herd immunity lobbyists seeking to minimise covid. The difference being that Us for Them were grateful for the offers of support unlike EidK who were concerned about the path they were being led down.

Franziska Briest, the Berlin co-spokeswoman for FidK and her representatives managed to appear twice in the ARD program "Hart aber fair": 17 August, just three months after FidK’s inceptio, Nele Flüchter, co-founder of FidK Düsseldorf, was appearing as a studio guest in the broadcast. Franziska Briest, leading FidK member from Berlin, was also quoted on the programme from Twitter on 11 January 2021 without referencing her position to her as the Berlin co-spokesperson for FidK.

After it became known in August that health authorities had ordered that children who might be infected should be isolated from the rest of the family at home, Siegloch and "Families in Crisis'' made it into an agency report from the Evangelical Press Service (epd) which then spread through the German media .There was also a detailed report on "Stern.de" in January with FidK co-founder Diane Siegloch. These are just a few examples of FidK’s media presence

Diane Siegloch, who incidentally also has ambitions for a CDU seat in the Wiesbaden city parliament , still knew how to win over prominent politicians.

Free Market Think Tank

Kristina Schröder performed at a FidK demo in November; the ex-Federal Minister for Family Affairs from the CDU was one of the speakers. Schröder, who - as the FAZ wrote - was already available on 10 June 2020 with tips at a Zoom conference, now supported the FidK's protest against the obligation to wear masks in Wiesbaden primary schools.

Did she do both events as a private person or in her capacity as an ambassador for the New Social Market Economy initiative? Schröder took part as a private person, Siegloch said in writing. The INSM writes:

“Outside of INSM events and INSM publications, the INSM has no influence whatsoever on the activities, commitments and statements of its honorary ambassadors. From the point of view of the INSM, all activities, commitments and statements by the ambassadors that are not explicitly initiated and identified by the INSM are matters that are not connected to the INSM.”

She has never spoken to representatives of the INSM about the group, Schröder is quoted as saying on "T-Online" : She is surprised "when you don't believe a former family minister and mother of three has a real inner commitment to this important topic and something about dark powers fantasised together in the background".

The "T-Online" article in which Lars Wienand addresses the "Families in Crisis" initiative is headlined: "How parents became a lobby group for relaxation."

Another woman who was initially active in “Parents in Crisis” and later switched to “Families in Crisis” stands out: Helen Zeidler, doctoral student at the KU Eichstätt, research associate of Professor Alexander Danzer. Danzer is the initiator of the call "Enable education" by the INSM-affiliated Ifo Institute and a member of the INSM-affiliated research network CESifo and the Research Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), an economic research institute in Bonn financed by the Deutsche Post Foundation.

Just like Diane Siegloch, Helen Zeidler was also able to immediately win over politicians for a FidK demonstration: On June 6th and July 4th, 2020, the parliamentary group leader of the Bavarian Greens in the state parliament, Ludwig Hartmann, and the Bavarian SPD state parliamentarian spoke in Munich Doris Rauscher.

At the end of June 2020 - just a few weeks after the founding of "Parents in Crisis" and "Families in Crisis" - Lela ( @Ngiyalalela ), who is still a very active FidKler today, campaigned on Twitter to sign a petition. She addressed her appeal to various professors, to Kristina Schröder, to Franziska Briest and to Liz Cole of Us for Them

Franziska Briest from the Berlin “Families in Crisis” group emphasises that she only knows “UsForThem” from Twitter. When FidK challenged masks in schools in federal courts Us for Them promoted the case and their own attempts to ban masks used much of the same evidence base as Fidk.

Meanwhile another familiar story, initiatives by other parents seem to be lost in the many “families in crisis” posts. For example, the parents' organisation "Safe Education Now" (SBJ). This had often tried to bring their demands for better hygiene concepts in educational institutions to the public. But the media response is manageable. "Through various campaigns, we have managed to draw the attention of thousands of people in just a few months and win them over to support our common cause," says SBJ spokesman Bruno Capra, but "until now we have been denied access to the larger media.”

A problem that "families in crisis" does not know. Not only do they have access to the larger media, but also to various politicians. Capra's allegation:

“A stage is always offered to people who put things into perspective, play it down, or even deniers. We, and we mean everyone who advocates a long-term, considered and scientifically based strategy for dealing with the virus, are left out.”

"We cannot and do not want to be satisfied with that and expect to have our say to the same extent," says Capra.

"Families in Crisis" is already working on structures for a time after the acute corona pandemic. A few days ago it was announced that the “Children need children” initiative – which also had an appointment with Minister Giffey – would found the association “Initiative Families” (IF) . Its board member: Diane Siegloch.

But: "Not all old comrades-in-arms wanted to go down this path," says a tweet, with the foundation comes a separation.

The Atlas Network

The rapid rise of FidK in Germany came with support from well connected individuals from INSM, The New Social Free Market Initiative, which advertises itself as an employers organisation. INSM lobbies for the typical libertarian agenda, deregulation, the shrinking of the state, challenging measures to tackle climate change etc, also typically its rhetoric is of competitiveness, entrepreneurship and individual responsibility which boils down to removing responsibility and accountability from the rich whilst the state abandons the working class freeing them of protections against exploitative employers. The INSM has extensive partnerships with German media and influences the guest choices of political talk shows.

INSM has been described as Germany’s equivalent to the Koch backed, CNP aligned AIER in the US, and the INSM is linked to the Mont Pelerin Society which seeks to discover ways in which free enterprise can replace many functions currently provided by governments. Unsurprisingly, just like the AIER the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) has close ties to the Atlas Network, Koch backed, CNP aligned of which the UK’s IEA is a member. The same IEA which is closely linked to Legatum, and whose chairman is funding Conservative Way Forward which Ed Barker is providing PR for alongside Us for Them.

Querdenken

Those wishing to learn more about the cultural and political impact on covid in Germany will encounter a movement references to Querdenken and lateral thinkers. This is their equivalent to the UK’s contrarian libertarians, a grouping which contains a similar mix to our sceptic movement, a grouping including free marketeers, the far right and in Germany’s case, Scientologists, claiming to be only concerned about defending liberty and freedom.

Many Querdenken supporters have embraced the “I’m not antivax but…” approach to the covid vaccine while relying on the cherry picking and misrepresentation tactics favoured by anti-vaxxers pre-covid. As with “freedom fighters” in the UK, US and many other countries there is an overlap with conspiracy theorist disinformation groups promoting the Nuremberg 2.0 narrative that calls for those who supported lockdowns and mass vaccination to be put on trial.

From the Irish Times on Doleres Cahill (World Doctors Alliance, World Freedom Alliance, Health Freedom Ireland) German links.