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WEF founder Klaus Schwab: "maliciously designed"
Photo: dpa / AP
When Michael Kretschmer recently received a visit from Corona deniers while shoveling snow, the Saxon Prime Minister could hear and read what was going on in these people's heads.
»The elite want their AGENDA 2030 Great Reset
enforce ”read a sign that a woman carried in front of her stomach.
"That's determined from above," the woman scolded excitedly, "by the Soros clique, Bill Gates and everyone."
Its inventor would probably never have dreamed that the slogan of the "Great Reset" would make it to the provinces of Saxony.
Klaus Schwab, an 82-year-old former economics professor from Upper Swabia, is the founder and head of the World Economic Forum (WEF) - and best known for the annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, where politicians and corporate bosses discuss the world's problems.
Last year Schwab and the French Thierry Malleret wrote a book entitled »Covid-19: The Great Reset«, which in the German edition is called »The Great Change« (although it actually translates as »The great new start«) would have to be).
Schwab also selected “The Great Reset” as the motto for this year's WEF meeting.
It would actually take place from this Monday, but because of the pandemic, the personal meeting has been moved first to May and second to Singapore, which is currently virtually corona-free.
There will only be one online event this week - with speakers from Chinese President Xi Jinping to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
To be on the safe side, the slogan of the "Great Reset" has been banished to the depths of the program.
On the other hand, he is omnipresent on the Internet's conspiracy channels - whether on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or in self-proclaimed "alternative media": Anyone looking for the keyword "Great Reset" gets the impression that Schwab is something like the cat-stroking villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the old James Bond films: always looking for the shortest route to world domination.
The fact that this conspiracy thesis was able to spread to many living rooms in Germany is due, among other things, to people like Max Otte and Robert Stein.
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Max Otte (here in the TV studio of "Anne Will"): "In the middle of the action"
Photo: Karlheinz Schindler / dpa-Zentralbild
Otte, a former economics professor who earns his living with stock market letters and bestsellers like “Weltsystemcrash”, propagates the thesis of a “transformation to a new world order” planned by the elite - and makes Schwab his key witness.
The founder of the World Economic Forum is "now really in the middle of the action, among the elites, he knows the billionaires of this world and the leaders of the states," Otte recently whispered in an interview with YouTuber Gunnar Kaiser.
And if this man writes such a book, so the argument suggested by Otte, then it is no coincidence.
"That can get really bad."
Silent conspiracy mail
If Otte is at least in rough sight to be serious, the YouTuber Robert Stein is long gone.
A small elite of the super-rich had decided on a "plan to reshape the world," the moderator said last autumn on the Nuoviso Internet broadcaster.
"And so that the ruling elite retain power even after this system reset, a deliberate system crash is brought about": the corona pandemic.
In the middle of this horror story, of course: Klaus Schwab.
It is like the children's game »Silent Mail«: With every new conspiracy theorist who continues the story of the »Great Reset«, it becomes a little more absurd and horrific.
The "Great Reset" was even an issue in the US election campaign.
The ultra-conservative Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham repeatedly warned her audience of the plan allegedly forged in Davos, with which the global elite wanted to introduce a kind of new surveillance socialism.
And the Catholic Archbishop and former Vatican diplomat Carlo Maria Viganò oraculated in an open letter to then President Donald Trump that all people who refused to have a vaccination and a health card would be locked in internment camps and should lose their private property.
But what is really behind Klaus Schwab's “Great Reset”?
Anyone looking around for the keyword on the WEF website can in any case suspect great things: "The world must act quickly and together in order to reshape all aspects of our societies and economies - whether education, social contracts or working conditions," it says.
Every country must join in and every economic sector must be transformed.
"In short: we need a 'great restart' of capitalism."
That sounds pathetic on the one hand, but also quite vague on the other - and precisely because of this combination it is a perfect projection surface for conspiracy theorists.
Everyone can interpret what they want.
At the WEF, you see yourself on the way to a “better world: more inclusive, fairer and more respectful of Mother Nature”.
In the universe of the ostentatious YouTubers, however, one recognizes the final seizure of power by the global elite.
A closer look at the political goals of the “Great Reset Initiative” shows how far the conspiracy theorists are wrong: better international coordination in regulation and taxation, better trade agreements, more private and state investments in sustainable infrastructure and more intelligent use of digitization and artificial intelligence in social and health systems.
All of this could also be included in the SPD's federal election program.
Or the CDU.
Or the green one.
Schwab himself also sees his slogan as a suggestion of how the world should react to the challenges of corona, climate change and digitization.
"Everyone who reads my book sees that it is an analysis of the consequences of the pandemic that shows fundamental trends, and not a recipe book for a total surveillance state or a Marxist system," he said at the request of SPIEGEL.
The term "reset" was maliciously interpreted as a deliberate total transformation of society.
A praise for everyone
In fact, it is difficult to imagine the 82-year-old as a sinister world conspirator.
He is known for his excellent contacts among the regular Davos audience.
Regardless of whether it is a turbo-capitalist hedge fund manager or a communist party leader: Schwab, it seems, can somehow with anyone - and has perfect adulation ready for everyone ("a great friend").
Sometimes it seems too arbitrary.
When Schwab welcomed then US President Donald Trump all too friendly in 2018, a clearly audible grumble went through the audience.
Schwab's love for the really big slogan is also notorious - and is regularly reflected in the official mottos of the WEF meetings.
Whether "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World" (2020), "Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World" (2018), "The Reshaping of the World" (2014) or "Shaping the Post-Crisis World" (2009) - under "world change" you rarely do it at the WEF.
This can already be seen in the organization's basic motto: "Committed to improving the state of the world", committed to improving the state of the world.
If you want, you can see a certain hubris from it.
"What matters to us is what is right for humanity as a whole," Schwab once said in an interview with SPIEGEL.
But who knows what that is supposed to be?
Fortunately, there is a lot of talk and few decisions in Davos - apart from the business that company bosses initiate on the sidelines of the meeting.
And after all, Schwab is very careful to expand the spectrum of those who are allowed to have a say in the discussions.
It is no longer just managers and politicians who sit in the panel discussions and at dinners, but also human rights and climate activists.
He calls these groups "stakeholders", which can be translated as "participants" or "partners" and which is in contrast to classic "shareholder capitalism" in which only the company's shareholders are allowed to have a say.
Last year, for example, alongside Donald Trump, the young Swede Greta Thunberg was one of the stars of the WEF meeting.
But precisely such developments make Schwab particularly suspicious for right-wing conspiracy theorists.
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WEF visitor Bill Gates: Enemy for conspiracy theorists
Photo: ARND WIEGMANN / REUTERS
The fact that people like George Soros and Bill Gates are regular guests in Davos also serves as evidence of the great conspiracy for these people.
After all, the American-Hungarian billionaire and the Microsoft founder are not only among the richest people in the world, but also among the most popular protagonists of right-wing conspiracy stories because of their political and social commitment.
Which brings us back to the small Saxon town of Großschönau - with the Corona deniers who visited the Prime Minister while shoveling snow.
You and all the other conspiracy fans may have some fresh food soon.
This Monday, Klaus Schwab publishes his new book: "Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet".
That sounds bombastic as usual, but not as handy as its predecessor.
Maybe Schwab just wants to have some peace and quiet.
Icon: The mirror
