It is a "private opinion" - which, thanks to a ministry letterhead, is making waves: An employee of the interior department shoots sideways. Now it is slowed down.
- In a heated mood, an employee of the Interior Ministry is causing the next scandal - he is reprimanding the corona measures with an official letterhead .
- Minister Horst Seehofer's (CSU) house reacted clearly to this.
- Now explosive details become known from the employee's analyzes - which he communicated internally much earlier.
- The number of corona cases meanwhile exceeds the officially set limit values in several counties.
- Here is our Corona Virus Reporting Guide * and our “Corona News” on Facebook. The current Corona case numbers for Germany can be found here as a map *.
Update, 5:10 pm: A paper that has become public, in which an employee from Horst Seehofer's Federal Ministry of the Interior warns against “health collateral damage” caused by the measures against the corona virus in Germany , among other things , continues to make waves. According to the Interior Ministry, senior government councilor Stephan Kohn (SPD) “carried out the critical analysis independently”.
As reported by Bild.de , the paper was also the subject of a parliamentary meeting of the parliamentarians held by video conference. According to the report, the video conference announced that civil disciplinary proceedings against Stephan Kohn had been initiated for the unauthorized disclosure of information.
Seehofer on controversial corona virus paper: "I don't know the employee better"
Update, 3:50 p.m .: According to Horst Seehofer, he had no direct contact with Stephan Kohn , who on his own made a critical analysis of government action in the Corona crisis ( see below ). "I don't know the employee better," says Seehofer . In his ministry, anyone can "have their opinion based on our constitution," the Federal Minister of the Interior emphasized. However, it was problematic that in this case the impression was given that the opinion published by Kohn represented the opinion of the Ministry .
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Corona: Seehofer employee calls Virus "global false alarm" - his analyzes contain explosive details
Update, May 13, 1:20 pm: The scandal surrounding the Ministry of the Interior employee, who called the corona pandemic a " false alarm " in a paper (see below), continues to make waves. As has now become known, the letter was written by Stephan Kohn (SPD). That initially reported the picture .
Apparently, the senior government council had already raised initial doubts about how to deal with the Corona crisis among colleagues and superiors in mid-March . He then began to research independently. In a 93-page short version and a 192-page long version, which in addition to Kohn's analyzes also includes email communication with colleagues and superiors, the Interior Ministry employee shared his point of view.
As the picture further reports, the paper reads, among other things, that the corona crisis means "between 5,000 and 125,000 patients" who "will die / have already died due to postponed operations". There are further deaths due to “canceled follow-up treatments” of operating theaters and “due to heart attack and stroke” - for example because patients no longer trust the clinics for preventive care.
Coronavirus: Interior Ministry employee was responsible for analyzes of "medical care"
According to the picture , as an employee of the Interior Ministry, Kohn is responsible for analyzes of the "critical infrastructure", which also includes " medical care ". His analyzes are apparently supported by the theses of Prof. Peter Schirmacher , head of pathology at the University of Heidelberg and member of the Leopoldina Academy .
Meanwhile, one is service prohibition against Kohn imposed ( see below ). However, more and more details from the letter and an "interim report", which he had sent to a manager on March 23 , leak out. “It currently appears as if we are dismantling our community to prevent worse things from happening. But what could be worse than our community being dismantled? ”Kohn is said to have written in it, among other things.
A ministry spokesman said that Kohn's critical opinion was not the reason for the ban. "It is not about an employee expressing a critical opinion, but about doing it under the letterhead of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and thereby giving the impression that it is the position of the house."
Corona: Seehofer employee calls Virus "global false alarm" - the ministry takes harsh consequences
Update, May 11, 1:50 pm: The incident now has serious consequences for the Seehofer employee who called the corona pandemic a "false alarm" ( see below ) . As the world first reported, the employee of the Federal Ministry of the Interior was released from his duties.
The report, which questions the measures taken in the fight against the coronavirus * , was a "private opinion" and an "analysis carried out independently", the Interior Ministry said. The conduct of the employee, who distributed the multi-page report with official letterhead in official communication channels, was "not acceptable and incompatible with the general duties in the public service", it continues.
The Ministry of the Interior also made a statement regarding the content - and justified the measures taken in the fight against the pandemic , the world said . Many countries in the world and most countries in Europe would have taken similar measures *. In some cases, the restrictions in other countries would go even further than in Germany. "The infection rate in Germany has so far been rather low in international comparison. The measures taken are effective, ”said the Interior Ministry.
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Scandal in the Ministry of the Interior: Seehofer employee calls Corona "global false alarm" - the Ministry is taking consequences
Berlin - With increasing sharpness, measures to protect against the Corona * pandemic are being debated - apparently there are disagreements in individual cases even into the German executive. For example, an employee of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) commented critically on the corona measures in a supposedly official mission.
The timing of the mini-scandal is delicate: at the weekend, people across Germany protested against the restrictions in the pandemic - sometimes disregarding the rules necessary to protect against infection. At the same time, infection indicators are rising again in Germany. The author of the letter is now feeling the consequences of official law. He had no responsibility, mandate or permission for his statements.
Coronavirus / Seehofer: Interior Ministry employee causes a scandal
The employee had "spread his critical private opinion on the federal government's corona crisis management in a multi-page document using the BMI letterhead and the official communication channels," said the head of the department head Horst Seehofer (CSU) on Sunday in Berlin.
"In-house measures" ensure that he can not continue, the statement said. According to a Spiegel report, the 80-page paper is said to have gone to a large distributor both internally and externally. At the weekend it landed on the controversial right-wing side of Tichy's insight - where the speaker is depicted as a kind of whistleblower.
Corona virus: "Global false alarm" - Ministry employees acted without permission
In the paper, the author takes the view that dealing with Covid-19 is a "global false alarm". The risk of the corona virus * is "not greater than that of many other viruses". The measures ordered by the authorities caused more damage than they used. The state may have to accept the accusation of being "one of the largest Fakenews producers" in the Corona crisis.
"As far as is known, the drafting also took place with the participation of third parties outside the Federal Ministry of the Interior," says the House's statement. Recently, many experts, including the well-known virologist Christian Drosten * , had appealed to social networks, among others, to stop the spread of fakenews on the Corona theme.
Corona in Germany: Seehofer employee shoots sideways - "not acceptable"
The independent "analysis" of the employee now took place outside the functional responsibility of the author and the organizational unit in the ministry for which he worked, the Interior Ministry said. "There was no order or authorization for this compilation."
It is not acceptable for private opinions and collections to be written using official symbols, such as the official letterhead, and made available to the public.
Horst Seehofer CSU party friend and Bavaria's Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann only commented critically on Sunday in an interview with Munich's Merkur * about the processes at individual corona demonstrations in Bavaria.
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AFP / fn
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.