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Adbusting campaign in Hanover: false poster with Economics Minister Robert Habeck
Photo: Michael Matthey / dpa
The Greens in Lower Saxony have fallen victim to a fake campaign.
Unknown persons have put up posters in the name of the party, and state security and the public prosecutor's office are now investigating the matter.
A poster shows Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck with an alleged tip against his cabinet colleague, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
Another shows Lower Saxony's deputy prime minister and Volkswagen supervisory board member Julia Willie Hamburg with the slogan "VW stands for traffic change".
Both posters are fakes.
"These are not our contents," said the Greens spokeswoman Heike Köhn.
The fake party posters were put up in at least four cities – Hanover, Osnabrück, Göttingen and Lüneburg.
In addition, the homepage of the Greens' regional association was copied and a false press release with alleged plans for transport policy was added, which was also sent by email.
The Greens had already filed criminal charges for the action on Tuesday.
"We're on to it"
"It's still completely unclear who is behind it," said Köhn.
"We're on to it." It's still unclear under which name the website was registered.
According to the party, the originators of the campaign are disrupting the political debate by using their messages to pose as the Greens and as elected officials.
Even the outdoor advertiser Ströer, on whose billboards the motifs could be seen, does not know the author.
"It is not a regularly booked order," said a Ströer spokesman.
"In such cases, we immediately take care of removing such posters." It was unclear how many posters were in circulation altogether.
Deceptively real adbusting
A lot of effort was put into the adbusting: In fact, the posters with the design that was also used in the state election campaign a few months ago look deceptively real.
The fake website is almost a mirror image of the real Green Page, including photos and contact details of the employees, even the imprint was copied.
However, the address is green-nds.de instead of gruene-niedersachsen.de.
And the photo of the supposed press spokeswoman can be found online on the profiles of a British travel writer.
The cell phone number provided only leads to an answering machine.
In terms of content, the fake campaign presents alleged transport policy goals for Lower Saxony: These include stopping the expansion of motorways, switching the car industry to buses, trains and cargo bikes, and promoting local transport instead of promoting e-charging stations for private transport.
This is formally based in part on a paper calling for more climate protection in transport, which the Greens parliamentary group passed in the Bundestag in January.
The originators of the fake campaign could be activists from the climate movement, because adbusting is now acknowledged on the fake website.
Behind the campaign are people who want to »make rail, bike and bus more attractive in town and country«.
In a statement, it is also said that the described traffic goals are "hopefully green demands" - "if that is not the case, a correction would be helpful in order to be able to better classify the policy of the Greens".
To clarify this question, a discussion round in the office of the Greens in Hanover is proposed for February 10th.
mrc/dpa
