Reading from Daniele Ganser's book at the Meissen Literature Festival: "difficult balancing act"

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City of Meißen (symbol image): The evangelical church is less than happy with the item on the program

Photo: Andreas Weihs / Andreas Weihs / IMAGO

He remains defiant.

"Are you suspicious of Daniele Ganser?" Reinhard Pluchke asks on the phone.

The former local politician wants to read from the book "Das Imperium USA" by the Swiss conspiracy theorist and corona skeptic Ganser at the renowned literature festival in Meissen, Saxony, on the weekend after Pentecost.

"I could read Struwwelpeter now, too, should I?" Then Pluchke himself answers: He certainly won't do that.

Whereby – and this is where the problem begins – engineer Pluchke would never use the term “conspiracy theorist”.

This is a "bad word" with which people should be stamped.

Pluchke calls Ganser a "peace researcher."

Just like the historian, who is controversial because of many crude theses - for example about the 9/11 attacks, Ukraine or Corona - does it himself.

His supporter from Meissen, who wants to bring the book to the reading stage in the church, praises the fact that Ganser asks questions "that are not asked in history books".

"The USA Empire" is "hard work, written in a catchy way," and rightly so it is a bestseller.

These are certainly hypotheses, admits Pluchke, "but many sources are mentioned."

He had it written in the printed program of the literature festival: »The book by the Swiss peace researcher shows impartially and realistically how the leading world power asserts its interests worldwide.«

The Meissen Literature Festival claims to be the largest free open-air reading festival in Germany: almost 200 readings, thrillers, children's books, regional literature and literary classics.

A lot of celebrities have been announced, from the writer Ingo Schulze to the last GDR interior minister, Peter-Michael Diestel.

The organizers lift

It is clear that Karoline Preisler, for example, wants to present her book »Endure Democracy!« on Saturday on the school square - the book offers a discussion about whether only those who polarize and defame loudly enough, who ignore facts, deny, distort, will prevail.

"Rather positioned on the edge"

It is not entirely coincidental that one or the other artist associated with the region is not represented at the literature festival this year, such as the cabaret artist Uwe Steimle or the writer Uwe Tellkamp, ​​who has drifted to the right.

The organizers see "red lines crossed" with them, as they say.

But the Ganser reading still appears in the program booklet, in which explicit conspiracy theory content is to be presented by a person who does not look at them analytically, but openly sympathizes with them.

The reading is planned for the evening before the official opening of the festival, but it is not entirely clear how it all came about: The Urbanskirche, where Pluchke is supposed to read, puts together its program for the literature festival – like other co-organizers – under its own direction.

Pluchke has been known to those responsible there for years.

This time it was not expected and then not noticed what should be presented by him, it is said.

What is allowed here is a "difficult balancing act," says festival director Daniel Bahrmann.

The reading from Ganser's book was deliberately "positioned more on the sidelines", "outside the official reading times" and on none of the own stages.

The process cannot be explained with a lack of knowledge about Ganser's controversial theses.

Ganser has always made special efforts to attract audiences in Saxony.

In October 2020, for example, he was allowed to give a lecture at the Dresden Jazz Days.

On the fringes of this celebration, he met Alina Lipp, the influencer who is currently gaining the reputation of being "Putin's German info warrior" with her Telegram channel "News from Russia" (more than 146,000 subscribers) and other reports from the Donbass.

The evangelical church is not very happy with the program item of the literature festival, it has been the event partner of the festival for years.

The pastor of the Johannes parish, to which the Urbanskirche belongs, leaves questions unanswered.

From the state church of Saxony, however, Ganser's book is talking about a "conventional work" - combined with the appeal to take a closer look in the future to whom or what is offered a stage in church rooms with such formats.

Harald Lamprecht, the representative for questions of ideology and sects of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, is particularly clear in the criticism.

The planned reading was "a mistake," he says, and calls Ganser "an important key figure in the conspiracy ideology scene."

Lamprecht goes on to say: "With his gentle demeanor and scientifically serious paintwork, he acts as a door opener for thinking about conspiracy myths." should steer him in the desired direction.

»A reading is not the format in which such a subtle tactic can be successfully analyzed and deconstructed.«

more on the subject

• US author on the success of campaigns of lies:»It is easier to believe in a conspiracy«An interview by Arno Frank

• Uwe Tellkamp capitulates to himself: So much hate, disgust, reckoning, morality by Xaver von Cranach

Reader Pluchke doesn't intend to do that either.

He is quite well known in Meissen town society.

In the 1990s he sat on the city council for the CDU, but he is no longer a member of the party.

Only at the beginning of the year was he appointed local curator of the German Foundation for Monument Protection.

Pluchke is a member of the "Bürgerdialog_LK_Meißen" channel on Telegram, in which opponents of vaccination and corona deniers have networked - "to read the opinions of Meissen citizens on various topics," as he says.

At the reading evening in the Urbanskirche, he would not make Corona an issue, says Pluchke.

It is "not a political event" and no discussion is planned.

At the beginning of the week, the organizational team of the literature festival agreed on how to proceed.

The Ganser reading should not be cancelled.

Festival director Bahrmann has announced a critical moderation for the evening, the announcement has already been changed on the literature festival's website.

Now it says there: »The controversial book has been widely criticized for its bizarre conspiracy stories.

Denis Scheck, for example, describes it as an 'absolutely toxic mixture of the true and the false'«.