Veteran Journalists Slam German UBA Environmental Agency…Suppression Of Dissent “Reminds Of Reichskulturkammer”!

A few days ago NTZ wrote about a recently published brochure released by the Umweltbundesamt (UBA), which is Germany’s version of the EPA.

UBA Director Jochen Flasbarth lost control of the agency to radical zealots, now under massive fire. Photo: UBA.

The notorious brochure not only included an alarmist summary of climate science today, but also contained a sort of “black list” of US and German skeptics, portraying them as “spreaders of half-truths and misinformation”.

In that article I expressed doubts about this brochure holding up legally, and said we likely have not heard the last of this story. Boy was I right! Hat-tip Bernd Felsche.

Henryk Broder sees parallels with dark regimes

For starters, yesterday, flagship national daily Die Welt, one of the targets of the UBA brochure, published a commentary written by veteran, renowned journalist Henryk Broder. The title: A government agency declares the climate debate ended.

What follows are some of Broder’s comments on the notorious witch-hunting UBA brochure:

The UBA Environmental Agency claims to have the power of authority when it comes to climate change and has put some journalists on the pillory in the debate. Such an approach reminds us of the Reichskulturkammer and the East German regime.”

Broder writes that one has to be careful before making Nazi comparisons, but says “sometimes there are stunning similarities or parallels that bear witness to an amazing continuity of thought and action.” He writes:

There was a Reich Chamber of Films that controlled German film-making. Only members of the Reich Chamber of Films were allowed to work in film production. Every one else was forbidden to work in that occupation. The same rule applied for the Reich Chamber of Theatre, Reich Chamber of the Press, Reich Chamber of Broadcasting, Reich Chamber of Music, and the Reich Chamber of Arts. All these chambers operated under the umbrella of the Reichskulturkammer (RKK) [Reich Chamber of Culture], which was created by the Reich Minister for Education and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

At the end of the Third Reich, the RKK and its departments disappeared into the rubble of German history. And up to today no one has ever proposed a new founding or re-establishment of such an institution. However: There is now a ‘Federal Chamber of Climate’ that is under the name of the Umweltbundesamt UBA.”

I’d like to remind readers that Broder is by no means exaggerating here. The brochure really is that nasty. Rahmstorf is all over it. The UBA brochure takes aim at American and German journalists and scientists only because they have a different opinion about how the world’s weather works over the long-term.

Broder writes that the UBA’s latest step “is an unprecedented case of government authoritarian intervention in a public discussion we’ve seen since World War II“, adding that the UBA has gone too far:

It draws the lines in the climate debate. That means it has ordered an end to the debate. And it determines who has the right to say something, and who is to remain silent.”

If there was ever proof that the warmists have lost the debate, the UBA has delivered it on a silver platter.

Broder concedes that perhaps the comparison to the third Reich is overdoing it, and so ends his commentary:

Therefore the question is not: ‘Is there climate change?’, but rather it is: ‘Are we on the way to a second East German Regime where the government is responsible for today’s weather forecast and the climate for the day after tomorrow?’ “

UBA brochure “a scandal”

Broder is just the latest to speak out on the UBA’s anti-democratic direction. Die Welt Editor in Chief Jan-Eric Peters wrote at his Facebook site:

One should use the term ‘scandal’ sparingly. However, when a government agency such as the German Environment Agency publishes a sort of black list on unliked journalists in a brochure funded by taxpayers, and requests them to stop spreading untruths, then this is indeed a scandal!”

At his klimazwiebel blog Hans von Storch writes in a reader comment writes:

I suspect that there is going to be public, critical interest aimed at this UBA Sleeping Beauty Castle.”

Even devout green protagonaists of man-made global warming are horrified by the UBA’s authoritarian brochure, like ZDF television. Very few media outlets are greener and more one-sided than Germany’s ZDF public television. ZDF journalist Reinhard Schlieker comments, writing that the “UBA goes after journalists and scientists who claim that man-made global warming has not been proven” and that the brochure comes across as an “official defamation for a ‘good cause'”. Suddenly, we see that the ZDF recognizes that the UBA has gone way over the line, and that there is no consensus in climate science after all.

The ZDF article continues, describing the “chamber” mentality of the brochure:

In Part B of the brochure that the science is settled and that cluelessness rules in the public debate which is influenced by somehow misled journalists. This part is based mainly on findings from Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, who works at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and vehemently advocates that only qualified scientists should have the right to express views on climate science – everyone else should not be given the authority to do so.”

The ZDF continues:

The publication of the UBA could produce the impression with readers who are unfamiliar with the topic that, with these journalists and authors, we are dealing with intentional fraudsters who are controlled by outside forces and paid by lobbyists.”

Knowing what I know about some of those targeted by the UBA, you can be sure they are not going to take this “defamation” laying down. Expect much more to develop on this in the days and weeks ahead.

Oh, the ZDF ends with:

According to information from heute.de [ZDF] Those involved are are considering a lawsuit. Heute.de has sent a list of questions and requested an explanation.”