One hour of work per day
Strack-Zimmermann posts hundreds of ads a month
05/02/2023 10:56 p.m
In a report, the chair of the defense committee, Strack-Zimmermann, and her office manager explain the exact extent of the hate and hate speech they are exposed to on a daily basis. The FDP politician places 250 ads per month. But it doesn’t just affect the “big ones” in politics.
Many politicians know about hate. From those responsible in a small community to well-known faces at state or federal level. Many of them receive exuberant abuse online, and there are also physical attacks in real life. FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is one of the politicians who represent particularly clear positions – for example in the Ukraine conflict – as a member of the Bundestag she is also known to a broad public. Both together form a high projection surface for criticism – and it often shoots well beyond the tolerable (and permissible) level. The 65-year-old therefore uses a method that probably only a few others consider: the rigorous placement of advertisements.
Strack-Zimmermann’s office manager, Cord Schulz, told Business Insider that an hour’s work is spent every day dealing with hostilities. They come, for example, via social networks, by e-mail or as a letter – sometimes even with a sender. A lawyer identifies justiciable comments, according to the report, and by the end of the month, FDP politicians are given a large stack of ads to review and sign. According to the office manager, 250 criminal complaints were filed every month this year. If Strack-Zimmermann has a public appearance, there will be around 600 new hate messages in the main mailbox the next day. Employees would then each receive hundreds more.
In real life, the FDP politician is always personal protection. According to Schulz, around 100 counter-demonstrators came together at their appearances in Frankfurt or Rottweil. A mishmash of Reich citizens, right-wingers and conspiracy believers. Strack-Zimmermann no longer travels through her home town of North Rhine-Westphalia on the regional train.
“Normally vermin like you should be shot immediately”
Some agitators react according to “Business Insider” on the mail from the lawyer. Then people like to say that everything isn’t meant that way and that it’s just fun. Some would also sign cease and desist letters and pay 500 to 100 euros. Others, according to the office of the FDP politician, are going to the district court. For most of the offences, especially the serious ones such as death threats, the proceedings were still ongoing.
Even after the report on the hostilities, Strack-Zimmermann received justiciable digital mail again. On Twitter, she showed a screenshot of a person who wrote to her: “You are surprised that you are being attacked? No wonder. Normally vermin like you should be shot immediately. Enjoy the ad.” The FDP politician then reacted deliberately relaxed: “I’m somehow disappointed with the first reaction, it was to be expected. Senders who write to me crying and apologetically after a letter from the public prosecutor’s office give me more pleasure that they couldn’t have guessed that I was a warmonger & don’t take armor h*re as fun.”
Extreme hatred also affects local politicians
Many other politicians at the federal level have also reported similar experiences in the past, and hatred is said to have increased significantly, especially during the corona pandemic. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, among others, has been severely affected by this, and death threats have been made against him several times in various Facebook groups. But in order to be exposed to court hostilities, you don’t need to be well known on the big political stage.
The report “Municipal Monitoring on hatred, hate speech and violence against public officials” by the German Association of Cities is based on a nationwide survey of all honorary and full-time mayors and district administrators. The result: the number of politically motivated crimes against public officials, registered with the police has increased in recent years, rising from 1,894 in 2019 to 6,191 two years later.More than half of mayors, according to studies, have experienced insults, threats or assaults.
New law to ease prosecution
At least in the problem area of online hate messages, improvement should be in sight. The traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP is planning a “law on digital violence”. The coalition agreement says: “We create the legal framework for electronic procedures for reporting and for private procedures and enable judicially ordered account blocks.” The Ministry of Justice has approved the law that the federal government plans to introduce this year key points paper submitted.
It states, among other things, that the private information procedure should be strengthened by the law. Those affected by digital violence, for example using particularly derogatory expressions or death threats, could then find out within a few days who wrote this content. In all other cases, the court should at least be able to order data storage within a few days of initiating the information procedure. The aim of the storage is, among other things, that the secured data can be used as evidence in subsequent court proceedings.