Who is behind the new conservative campaign agency »The Republic«?

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Screenshot of the website of »The Republic«:

Photo: Screenshot / TheRepublic

"A bourgeois Germany" claims "The Republic" as a mission, a project launched on Thursday that aims to strengthen conservative forces.

»We stop the political drift to the left in Germany.

We stand up to the anti-citizen climate and give a strong voice to those who keep our country running, ”says the agency's website, which offers not only campaigns such as“ Stop gender ideology! ”As well as current reports and articles.

A video published on social networks at the start of the project begins with gloomy sounds and the question "In which country do we want to live?"

This is followed by passages with statements by prominent Greens and Social Democrats such as Annalena Baerbock and Kevin Kühnert, as well as excerpts from other news programs.

Among other things, it is about the protest against coal mining in North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne New Year's Eve 2016 and alleged left-wing extremist attacks on police officers.

In the end it is said that the country is at a crossroads and: "We have it in our hands!"

Together on the offensive! "

The managing director of »The Republic« is Armin Petschner-Multari, who was previously responsible for the social media presence of the CSU regional group in the Bundestag.

In this function, the now 32-year-old also moderated the video series »CSYou«, with which the Union responded to the video by YouTuber Rezo called »The Destruction of the CDU«, which was released before the 2019 European elections.

According to »Welt«, three full-time employees and four student workers work in the agency's Berlin office.

According to the information, the agency is financed by donations, according to Petschner-Multari, 200,000 euros have already been raised, the goal is initially half a million.

According to "The Republic", the supporters of the project come from the CDU, CSU and FDP.

One of them is also the CSU politician Dorothee Bär, it was initially said in a media report.

This denied it.

Christoph Ploß, head of the Hamburg CDU, has a positive view of the project, writes the »Handelsblatt«.

Friedrich Merz is also one of the supporters: "I have followed the development of this project with interest and wish the initiators every success in terms of diversity of opinion in Germany," he told the "Bild" newspaper.

Security expert Peter Neumann, on the other hand, who was part of Armin Laschet's »future team« during the election campaign, wrote on Twitter that »The Republic« is »AfD-affine junk and has nothing to do with the bourgeois-liberal Christian Democracy, to which I have adhered for a quarter of a century «.

Campaigner Petschner-Multari tweeted self-critically on Friday: “We are promoting liberal-conservative values ​​- sometimes provocatively and pointedly.

But we are also at the very beginning and in places we have to settle down. "

The daughter of the well-known CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach works as a columnist for the site.

For a new politics in the middle «.

Several texts on the site deal critically with the Greens and climate activists.

A text about the »green media phalanx« is illustrated with one by Baerbock on ARD, plus the line: »The nimbus is crumbling.«

In a report on the Fridays for Future protest announced for this Friday, the accusation is made that the movement "probably only partially understood" democratic processes.

Elsewhere it is stated "that the FFF disciples in particular will be satisfied with nothing less than the industrial decline of Germany".

This does not seem unhappy in the Union, which is currently sorting itself out for opposition work.

The parliamentary director of the CSU regional group, Stefan Müller, tweeted on Thursday: "The middle class in Germany has a lot of catching up to do in the digital space, #TheRepublic is breaking new ground here." He would be "happy to support" the project.