Last August three young men were attacked by culture-enrichers in the eastern German city of Chemnitz, and one of the victims later died. There were mass demonstrations in response the following week. An antifa group used a brief video of a confrontation that took place during the demos, and mischaracterized what happened in it, claiming that it showed a “manhunt” of foreigners by right-wing extremists. The media eagerly ran with the story — the arbiters of German politics and culture are Wessis, and are always ready to look down on Ossis as backward racists.

The government took its cue from the media. Even Chancellor Merkel chimed in to condemn the “manhunt” in Chemnitz. When the president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans Georg Maaßen, said that the intelligence services had no indication that any such manhunts had occurred, he was pressured into resigning his position.

Now, almost ten months later, the government of Angela Merkel has finally admitted that it got its information from the mainstream media, and had never done any actual investigation of the allegations about a “manhunt” in Chemnitz.

So at last there is a clear chain of custody for the false narrative about what happened in Chemnitz: It was manufactured by a far-left antifa group, accepted and amplified uncritically by the mainstream media, and then adopted equally uncritically by the federal government of Germany. A member of the government whose sense of integrity required that he tell the truth was forced out of his office, and the government officially stonewalled any questions about the narrative for many months afterwards.

The two videos below concern the eventual debunking of the Chemnitz narrative. The first shows a brief speech in the Bundestag by Ulrich Oehme, who represents Saxony for the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). Mr. Oehme draws the chamber’s attention to the government’s deliberate propagation of the false narrative on Chemnitz, and demands that Angela Merkel step down as chancellor.

The second video is a report by Epoch Times that gives a detailed description and a timeline of events between August 2018 and June 2019.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

Video 1: Dr. Merkel, Step Down!

Video 2: A Timeline of the False Narrative

Video transcript #1:

Video transcript #2:

00:00 For the most part false reporting and rumours don’t happen by coincidence. They are purposefully spread.

00:05 What if left-wing extremists purposefully use it to distract from a crime committed by migrants and fabricate a story

00:12 about something that never really happened?

00:17 And what if the left leaning media runs with the story, spreading it without checking?

00:21 Imagine the government’s press secretary, even the Chancellor accepting it without any verification and disseminating it.

00:27 A warm welcome to Epoch Times In Focus. My name is Florian Godovitzs.

00:32 Today we are going to examine a comment from a guest author Jürgen Fritz.

00:36 The title of the article is: “Will government spokesperson Seibert and Merkel now have to answer for their hate speech?”

00:45 “For the most part false reporting and rumours don’t happen by coincidence. They are purposefully spread.” That’s what the blog

00:51 “Die Kieker (Die Spoekenkiekerei)” wrote on the 30th of August 2018 in the wake of the fictitious Chemnitzer manhunts claims.

01:02 The blog continues: “The claims in this case that on Sunday, August 26th there were ‘manhunts’, ‘foreigners chased down’

01:15 and ‘pogroms’ in the city of Chemnitz still remains unverified. Almost all the media outlets adopted this narrative in the days

01:23 that followed, although there is no evidence of it to this day. There are no victims or suspects, there are no videos or testimonies,

01:32 the police have no knowledge of it, and the editor-in-chief of the local regional newspaper says that his reporters

01:40 saw no such thing. This is a classic case of Fake News.”

01:46 How did this information come into existence? We have tried to illustrate the course of events.

01:54 According to Fritz, if his research is correct and indeed genuine, the implications are incomprehensible.

02:02 The article ends with the following words: “Concerning the alleged fact of the alleged manhunt scenes the government spokesman

02:10 Steffen Seibert literally said this on following Monday at 11 a.m.” —Angry mobs hunting down people with a different appearances

02:19 or origins or the attempt to spread hate on the streets will not be tolerated in our cities and has no place.

02:28 I speak for the Federal Republic of Germany in condemning this in the strongest terms.”

02:34 Although the “manhunts” were never verified then or now, they became official facts because

02:40 of the Federal Government. According to Fritz, the government spokesman adopted the Antifa version without hesitation

02:50 and criminalised the peaceful but disorderly protests of hundreds of citizens with the slogan “manhunts”.

03:00 That nearly every media outlet took part for days is the actual scandal.

03:06 In November 2018, after weeks of research, Tichys Einblick was able to contact the person who filmed the 19-second video

03:16 from Chemnitz that was seen around the world. The claim and then later assertion from the radical leftist group Antifa Zeckenbiss

03:26 was that it showed migrants being hunted down or a manhunt. This portrayal was then adopted uncritically by many leading media outlets

03:36 and even by the Chancellor and her government spokesman. Later it was used as an instrument to distract from

03:46 the presumed migrant murder or homicide of the 35-year-old Daniel H.

03:53 Here is a clear-cut reconstruction in short form of how everything might have happened.

04:01 Antifa Zeckenbiss made up a story around the video images, claiming it showed hate crimes or migrants being hunted down

04:09 by right-wingers, which was then obviously very gratefully received by many mainstream media outlets.

04:18 According to Fritz, here another huge campaign was launched, a campaign of lies, that went all the way up.

04:25 Straight to the top of the chancellery. This is when president of the constitutional protection Hans Georg Maaßen dared to doubt

04:34 the “truth” monopoly of some media outlets. As the former president of the federal intelligence service Gerhard Schindler

04:43 puts it, “the real manhunt was launched.” It wasn’t after the immigrants but rather the constitutional protector Mr. Maaßen,

04:54 because in just a few sentences he let us see what the truth is about. On Friday the 7th of June 2019

05:05 the alleged Chemnitz manhunts of August 26, 2018, will be the subject of a one-hour debate in the German Bundestag.

05:15 This answer from the federal government came at the request of the AFD inquiring about the sources of information and

05:24 background knowledge that the government spokesman Steffen Seibert and Chancellor Angela Merkel used when

05:32 they spoke about manhunts and roaming mobs on the afternoon and evening of August 26, 2018 in Chemnitz.

05:40 The police in Chemnitz, the public prosecutor’s office, as well as local media who were present that day in Chemnitz confirmed

05:50 exactly the opposite —that there were no “manhunts” of migrants. In response to the inquiry, the federal government of Germany

06:02 makes the absolute appalling admission: “The political context of the federal government was based on media reports.”

06:14 Phrased correctly, a very certain kind of media was used. It was the false, scurrilous and unverified narrative of the Antifa Zeckenbiss,

06:24 thus making themselves accomplices of left-wing extremists.

06:30 The reply from the federal government continues: “The regional and national press reported that people with a migration

06:39 background had been chased down by those who left the marches. Violence was used against people with a migration

06:49 background due to their appearance.” So before the start of the press conference on 27th of August 2018, Steffen Seibert,

07:03 the spokesman for the federal government, mentioned “manhunts” the first time, without contacting with the Saxon police, without

07:10 contacting the public prosecutor’s office, without speaking with political decision-makers in Saxony, and neglected

07:19 to contact any local emergency services. Nevertheless, he rants in Antifa Zeckenbiss jargon, using the word “manhunt” to stir up hate

07:33 and cause division among the German people; pitting one side against the other. He wasn’t alone.

07:39 The Chancellor did the same thing one day later: she spoke about “manhunts” without having any contact with the Saxon police,

07:48 or the public prosecutor’s office, without speaking with political decision-makers in Saxony, and she never spoke with the local

07:56 emergency services. She did adopt the unverified Antifa Zeckenbiss narrative and jargon.

08:04 Apparently there was also no contact with the local hospitals to inquire whether injured people had been admitted.

08:14 Whether people were actually injured obviously didn’t interest anyone in the government.

08:22 The truth is more than likely that not a single person was even touched, let alone hurt, let alone hurt so badly that

08:30 they should have been admitted to the hospital. No, it was about something completely different here.

08:37 This was about creating a targeted distraction from the actual crime: The migrant murder or homicide of the 35-year-old Daniel H.

08:46 Therefore a targeted campaign against the right was initiated or at least heated up further.

08:54 The federal government has refused to answer why it never contacted all of the above-mentioned parties to obtain information.

09:05 This means both the government spokesman Seibert and the Chancellor herself adopted the narrative of a specific left-wing

09:14 mass media without verification. These same media outlets disseminated unverified statements from the left-wing

09:21 extremist group Antifa Zeckenbiss, which turned out to be lies. In so doing they incited parts of their own population against

09:30 other parts of the same population. In every normal functioning constitutional state this would not only have to lead to

09:37 their immediate resignation, but also to an immediate examination of what extent criminal offences had been committed

09:45 by both Seibert and Merkel, and they would have to be held accountable accordingly.

09:52 From all of us at Epoch Times in Focus, thank you for watching and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, click the like