The Lisa Case: Is there a Russian 5th Column inside Germany?

Stefan Meister | Head of the program on Eastern Europe and Russia at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)

I don’t think that this is the right question with regard to the Lisa Case, but I do think there is a fifth column in Germany anyway. The Russian leadership was able – through a story covered in Russian media – to motivate German Russians to demonstrate against inactivity on the part of the German police and administration. As such it represents the attempt via Russian media to create and instrumentalize Russkij mir inside Germany.

This story reveals the extremely limited degree to which Russian Germans are integrated into German society and how much they follow Russian media and Russian networks. As such, it is also a failure of German integration policy. But these people are not a fifth column in the Russian sense; they have not been set up as agents from outside, even if there might be some contact with people within Russian state institutions.

Much more, this points to the success of Russian propaganda, which is now able to shape the discourse even in Germany by falsifying news. It shows again how vulnerable our democratic societies are and how urgently German decision makers, law enforcement organs, and media need to pick up such cases and respond to them. It highlights the unpreparedness of German society and political life to respond to Russian intelligence and propaganda action in Germany. This case should be a wake-up call for policy change in responding to Russian actions and networks in Germany and the EU and taking them much more seriously than they have in the past.

Igor Merheim-Eyre | School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent

The Lisa case is not really a question of whether there is a Russian fifth column in Germany or not – at least, it is not an issue of loyalty. Instead, the problem seems to be the disenchantment with the policies of the federal government, and Russia’s attempt at exploiting it. For me, the response within Germany to the migration crisis and the uproar over the Cologne attacks (and in the Lisa case) are part of a wider frustration about the failures of multi-culturalism in Europe. For years, multi-culturalism has been reinforced in Western Europe through political correctness - which the political elite mistook for tolerance – and has stifled debate over migration.

The Kremlin has been exploiting this in the domestic politics of EU Member States, but also in justifying its Syrian intervention. The Lisa case, however, further struck home because this was an under-age girl of Russian origin, which provided an outraged audience both at home, and in Germany – among the Germans but, particularly, among the Russian diaspora. While the story was a fabrication and the German government responded quickly accusing the Russians of meddling in its domestic affairs, it highlighted a wider frustration about the way the question of migration is being handled.

To me, those being increasingly sympathetic towards Pegida should not be simply judged as pro-Russian and anti-migrant per se, but rather frustrated with the government’s inability to start addressing mass-migration and its wider socio-economic impact. In this sense, in the other extreme, those handing out teddy bears to migrant children in Vienna or Munich are not necessarily pro-migration as such, but frustrated by EU states’ inhumane way of treating people escaping poverty or conflict. The Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus has been very good at exploiting these existing grievances, presenting itself as the bulwark of traditional Christian European values. This, of course, is pure nonsense, but propaganda is like marketing – it’s not what you sell, but how you sell it.

Gustav C. Gressel | Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Berlin

Russian attempts to gain permanent, structural influence in Germany are nothing new, ranging back to the Soviet Union’s to use German communists as foreign-policy tool for the Soviet Union. The collapse of the USSR and the demise of communism did not mean there was an end to such endeavours – only the targeted audience changed. After 1991, Russians particularly cultivated close relations to German big business and the elder generation of the mainstream parties – particularly the Social Democrats. Amongst the elder generation, bad conscience regarding the “Ostfeldzug” – the Wehrmacht’s invasion of the Soviet Union – commanded good relations to the new Russia. (Equalising Soviet Union with Russia and forgetting about Belarus, Ukraine and the Polish campaign was a by-product to that extent). German managers for their take dreamt of gaining a major foothold in what seemed like a large, underdeveloped market with a highly skilled labour-force. The apogee of this business-driven Russia policy was marked by the Putin-Schöder friendship. While Russia gained considerable leverage on German politics – Germany embarked on a Russia-first policy until 2014 – this lines of influence were a fair-weather affair. Mending ties with mainstream-parties and business meant that stability was a precondition and the German-Russian relations remained peaceful at large. While Russia’s invasion of Georgia did not disturb the warm relations between Berlin and Moscow, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas did.

The amount of policy-change that occurred in Germany since 2014 is remarkable and – for sure – took the Kremlin by surprise. Not only was Germany not covering Russia’s actions. Germany was behind imposing sanctions on Russia and keeping the up despite of fierce resistance from southern Europe. Merkel stood behind Poroshenko in the Minsk negotiations, often being more critical towards the Russian counterparts than anyone else around the table. Germany played a leading role in implementing the decisions taken in Wales to strengthen NATO’s defences and closely coordinates its defence policy with Washington to re-assure Eastern European nations vis-à-vis an ever aggressive Russia. In German public opinion the image of Putin as a trustworthy partner fell dramatically. Even politicians previously pro-Russian, admitted that Russia “had ruined everything” (1).

But far from trying to reflect, why Russia had lost Germany (2), the Kremlin pondered about seeking new allies in Germany. Because personal favours and business relations seem too unreliable, ideological proximity was preferred. Since the winter of 2014/15, pro-Russian chants and slogans became increasingly popular amongst anti-Islamic PEGIDA demonstrations. Amongst the populist AfD, pro-Russian sentiments were wide-spread, but there was back then little indication of direct Kremlin support. But there was a common vision and ideology (3). For Putin and Germany’s far right, the “US-imposed” liberal values and multiculturalism would bring about the demise of Europe, and only a strong, authoritarian, Christian leader could rescue Europe. The German right wing decreasingly believed that Germany’s troubles could be solved by adjusting some of Germany’s policies, but rather radically re-designing its political, social, and economic order. This would not only demand disbanding the current European order – especially NATO and the EU –, but also to dissolute Germany’s transatlantic orientation and re-vector the country into the Russian orbit. This is music to Putin’s ears. And in Germany, these ideas are not only echoed by the extreme right. The radical left, particularly the post-communist “Die Linke” is on the same ideological track.

But the direct operative connection between the different agents of influence remained in the dark. Contacts between “DieLinke” and the Russian regime was well established, as their cadres frequently taxi to Russia and serve as “experts” in the Russian propaganda-effort. But how about the far-right? The case of the alleged rape of a 13 year old Russian gild cast new light into the affair. Russian media immediately jumped on the case, portraying a picture of Germany being overrun by Muslim migrants that impose their own order on the streets. The propaganda-effort made extensive use of material of extremist groups and right-wing activists, as well as professional actors to play “concerned Russians” (4). Then, a newly found “International Convent of the Russo-Germans” (Internationaler Konvent der Russlanddeutschen) started to organise demonstrations across the country, demanding protection from sexual violence and calling for an end of Germany’s open-door policy. While there are long established organisations of the Germans of Russian decent, this organisation was entirely new, most likely founded for propaganda-purposes only. The procedure was reminiscent of the GRU’s practices in Eastern Ukraine in autumn 2014. The orchestrated demonstrations also revealed operative coordination between PEGIDA, the AfD, and sometimes even the neo-Nazi NPD, as they cross-mobilised their followers and acted as speakers for their respective demonstrations. Russia seems to have forged a new 5th column on the very right rim of the German political spectrum.

But how influential is the new Russian 5th column? The AfD is gaining in the polls, profiting from the new insecurity about Germany’s ability to cope with the effects of the refugee crisis. But the high polls (around 12%) are not so much an endorsement of Putinism, as rather a sign of domestic insecurity. The fact that the administrative system is overwhelmed by Asylumn-pledges, that there is insufficient police to register people, generally that things are not administrated properly and sorrowfully according to German law is something disturbing for Germans. But if the influx of refugees swindles down, and the debate changes, the AfD might have a much more difficult time. The most visible impact they have is to drive the conservative wing of the CSU/CDU crazy. For fear of decreasing popularity, Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian CSU made a trip to Moscow courting Putin and embarrassing Merkel.

Die Linke as its solid 10% share, but its uncoditional support for Putin and the growing similarity of its Anti-Americanism, Anti-Europeanism and chauvenism with that of the far-right is practically excluding DieLinke from further talks on forming a government with the Greens and the SPD. The positions are too far apart.

How about the street? There are about 1.2 million Germans of Russian decent living in Germany. But Russian propaganda could only mobilise several hundreds on their rallies during the last weeks. While former Russian citizens are regarded to be rather more conservative than average Germans, they are not more vulnerable to propaganda. The radical right in Germany has fallen in love with Putin, and some Russians definitely are part of this. But the vast majority of German-Russians refrain from taking action on the Kremlin’s behalf.

Right-wing actions in Germany usually prompt a much bigger counter-reaction from civil society. Increasing arson-attacks on refugee homes in summer 2015 led to the “Willkommenskultur” and open-door policy regarding refugees in autumn. Hence, the fact that Russia is using the far-right for its propaganda machine in Germany might be another self-defeating policy by the Kremlin, that rather entrenches the German-Russian split than strengthens it. Merkel might have a low in popularity now. But her time as chancellor are far from being numbered. And when she recovers from this crisis and her domestic as well as international freedom of action increases again, she will very well remember who tried to subvert and harm her policies during this difficult times. Then, Russia will have lost Germany for good.

(1) http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,17099312,Rosja_bardzo_nas_rozczarowala.html

(2) http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/How-Russia-Lost-Germany-17365

(3)http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article151849545/Putins-Traum-von-einem-russisch-dominierten-Europa.html

(4) http://www.dekoder.org/de/article/aus-der-filmfabrik