This post will serve two purposes:
This is not a scientific paper and with the mass of information that is relevant, others will weigh other factors as more important and I might have forgotten some. Still, I try to be as objective as I can be.
Additionally I did not follow facebook or similar, instagram or similar and twitter or similar. Only video platforms, websites (of initiatives etc.), telegram.
It is difficult to judge, whether we had with the NetzDG a very draconian anti free speech law among Western and other nations (although some countries modelled their laws after the NetzDG) but there definitely exists a very narrow opinion corridor in the establishment media and papers thus pressured outliers to create alternative media already years ago.
Examples: Swiss establishment paper NZZ has been called Westfernsehen by the dissidents. A well-known term used for TV from the FRG watched in the GDR (which was only possible for some people, not in all areas and only for some stations). Books banned by bookstore chains but selling nonetheless. Establishment people excluded after uttering unpleasant opinions.
A general independent scene of film makers and video producers.
Establishment critical voices already many years ago from well-known people, e.g. Udo Ulfkotte, Peter Scholl-Latour.
A general scene of truthers, conspiracy theorists, anti-globalists and outliers/escapists.
In sum: A considerable alternative media scene, independent from political parties.
Which could provide platforms for interviews and amplification and knowledge concerning alternative media and censorship, e.g. the usage of telegram.
Population size and interconnection between Germans, Austrians, Swiss. Just to state the obvious. Germany is not a small country like Slovenia. Nearly everyone at least understands English. So we can understand practitioners in our language but also across the pond (which is not as easy for the population in Kenia or Paraguay probably). Interaction between the three nations and also many surrounding countries with differences in their approaches.
German history: GDR references are now made more and more often although they have been made in the past.
Early awareness and push back. Apparently the first PCR test regarding Covid was created by a German: Drosten. Drosten is and has been one of two leading voices for the establishment, together with Wieler, head of the RKI (Robert-Koch-Institut), the relevant governmental operation.
Wolfgang Wodarg was already involved with the push back, inquiries on EU level etc. during the swine flu scare (Drosten I believe too and back then on the fear-mongering side too) and thus familiar with such a situation and eager to check if it is another scare. You could say, especially if it is said to be only a Coronavirus, one type of virus associated with the common cold, so even weaker than the flu (influenza virus).
In the background of many minds the general experiences and awareness from back of the swine flu time, a movie in German named ‚profiteers of fear‘ shown during that time by the French-German public TV channel arte featuring Wodarg and a general anti pharma sentiment now re-uploaded to video platforms. More dokus on that topic by independent media, e.g. Oval media – which became the channel to feature the extra-parliamentary inquiries among other informative mirrors and own creations.
Former activities and personality structure of Dr. Schiffmann, Dr. Bhakdi+ Dr. Reiss and Dr. Wodarg
I spoke already about Wodarg who did not fear to speak out at all but the married couple of Dr. Bhakdi and Dr. Reiss had also some background that was critical of the fearmongering around infections and supposed epidemics, Bhakdi already being critical of the BSE fear in 2002 and researching into it.
A title of a book by them from 2016 (translation mine): Spectre infections: Myths, craze and reality. Schiffmann is a general practitioner but with a rare specialization in vertigo and he already had refused to align with some law giving away patient data some years ago, leading him and his wife to the decision to give up some special status. So he had his own mind, the guts and willingness to question too, was otherwise very much on establishment line and has only since this crisis begun to question the mandatory measles vaccination which Germany has since march of this year (with an average yearly death toll of 1, in words one).
Prof emit. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi and Prof. Dr. Karina Reiss
Their book on Corona will be available in English soon, currently only in German with a recent update regarding vaccination delivered additionally as a pdf for free. The vaccination topic is covered in this video, available for download from a telegram channel with English subtitles https://t.me/bitteltv/1727
Bhakdi is the more public face of the married couple but he has said that 80% of the work for the book did his wife.
Bhakdi early on had statements which even reached international audiences, e.g. from 29.03.2020 translated audio by Computing Forever
(several videos were censored by him, even an interview in Switzerland officially by the state (not by youtube this time)). He got invited to speak about his point of view to a conference in Hungary too.
Dr. Bodo Schiffmann
The pandemic, that wasn‘t one.
He started researching the facts early on because his staff asked him to do. He mainly used and uses official sources by the RKI – the institute that is leading the response in Germany with head Wieler.
Another source he started to use early on was swprs.org which provided us all with many informations in German and English (which then were used by corbettreport as well – off-guardian). Swprs collected publications, articles, papers and statements by professionals and was instrumental in the early phase to amplify the more objective voices rather than the dictatorial voices in governments. Off-Guardian copied articles or the other way around so it reached an even greater audience.
Swiss Policy Research (at the beginning of the crisis named Swiss Propaganda Research) was vaguely known to me from Dr. Daniele Ganser.
Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg
On his website https://www.wodarg.com/ most is in German, not much in English. Some graphics were bilingual in the early days but they are not prominently featured anymore. Here is a video seen by many from march with English subtitles.
In the early days more and more comments came up stating they want to have a parliamentary inquiry. I personally was shaking my head at that, it couldn‘t be more German. But! two great initiatives spawned from that meme, the second probably more involved in collecting voices. One of its members (Füllmich, more below) is helping to construct a legal strategy separately [only available in German sadly] - a class action in the USA.
First: ACU https://acu2020.org/ acu=extra-parliamentary inquiry committee https://acu2020.org/hearings/ https://acu2020.org/category/englisch/
Introductory video with English subtitles, 30 min
It is by doctors and covers more the medical aspects of the crisis.
Three key members:
Dr. Heiko Schöning (about him below)
Dr. Bodo Schiffmann
Prof. Dr. Dr. Martin Haditsch (Austria)
Other officials who became public during that time and were interviewed by the ACU
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hockertz, toxicologist, immunologist since 30 years involved with certification of pharmaceuticals and vaccines
Prof. Dr. Stefan Homburg public finances, early opponent to lockdown and society shutdown measures, being aware of the immense negative repercussions. Involved with the initiative mwgfd.de trailer
The second committee was formed from a legal perspective by 4 lawyers with Dr. Wodarg as adviser/person who could ask important medical questions to the invitees.
They had several meetings, always regarding a specific topic, e.g. children, Bergamo/Italy, impact on businesses, press etc. and have interviewed dozens of professionals and affected people.
https://corona-ausschuss.de/ , the video of first meeting [I believe mostly or only in German]
The 4 lawyers are: Antonia Fischer, Viviane Fischer (not related), Dr. Justus Hoffmann and Dr. Reiner Füllmich
Reiner Füllmich has been practicing in the USA/California mostly with huge cases against huge corporations and has thus a connection to the USA. He knew Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg from lawsuits with transparency international (where Wodarg had worked some years ago in some leading position).
Rainer Füllmich will – separately from the committee - support an initiative by American lawyers for a class action lawsuit (something that is not legally possible in Germany) for compensation which business owners can join (from Germany and the USA) and which will among other measurements probably target Christian Drosten, mentioned at the beginning, with the non-validated first PCR test used in this crisis which is also not been meant to use for diagnostic purposes but was instrumental in wreaking havoc.
This part about mr. Füllmich was all from memory, maybe there are some points which are not entirely correct. Although his first video explaining has the English title money talks it is only available in German up to now.
Additionally there have been other initiatives, leaks from the ministries of the interior in Germany and Austria. Some only providing information, statistical tools, estimates for impacts of lockdown and other sanctions like one middle class initiative did
and several others targeting a specific goal or area of need/help, like with families, schools/children and lawyers with forms to sue.
Dr. Heiko Schöning is interesting because he is not only an important member for the ACU but has in the meantime made a connection to the initiative by doctors in Spain
and as I learned just yesterday, August 25, he had made two public appearances, one in 2018 and one in September 2019 on independent media channels, the one at 9/11 2019 discussing his research about the specific case against the supposed perpetrator of the Anthrax attacks and the topic of Anthrax and biologically weaponry itself. I am not aware that he indeed published the material he collected in a bookform yet which was a goal at the time of that interview. It is sadly in German only and a longer one but if I maybe find the time I will make English subtitles.
Now in regard to the current situation the very important prediction was made during the interview at the end, after having discussed the proliferation of bio-warfare laboratories (two small hints: Erich Mies and bioport, now Emergent BioSolutions), the minds involved with them still very active in politics and the swine flu scare that a similar situation like the swine flu scare will repeat itself!
Which was immediately noticed by the interviewer when Dr. Heiko Schöning came back for a talk [only German] in march of this year.
Several very small protests under different names or even without names formed early on but much changed with Michael Ballweg and his querdenken intiative, he himself heading querdenken711 in Stuttgart. The translation 'lateral thinking' is probably correct but actually you can make tons of associations or plays of words with quer in German, some maybe even not in favor of the protesters, so a simple translation can never be sufficient here.
He is an entrepreneur and leads querdenken like his business. Thus he decentralized it early on and simply ensured that teams will develop itself in different cities. 711 is the start of the postal code for Stuttgart, other cities have their numbers. Stuttgart had other protests years ago so maybe this was a reason why there the first biggest ones developed (also a good public place available – Canstatter Wasen).
His calm attitude, the decentralization, the ability to solve something in a short fashion but also working extensively behind the scenes, drawing the best people with their abilities into the crowd and let them do their work, is what makes him a great organizer.
Telegram (t.me) has become a major way of communicating/organizing, apart from websites, youtube, facebook.
Generally there is a refusal to demonize anyone who is part of the pushback. No left no right. Conspiracy theory is a term not working. Talk about the matter (Wodarg), stop the labeling. Unity holds. Peace- and heartful cooperation with the police (no pictures like from Den Haag), police men have publicly spoken on demonstrations.
Second I want to mention Samuel Eckert from Switzerland, underlining the fact that we have people from three countries here working together. He makes livestreams, organized events in Switzerland, collects many data and goes on interviews himself. Maybe most importantly he is the contact point to the conspiracy theorists of whom the most visible, public and largest, Oliver Janich has infected Eckert and another guy with the counter hypothesis that there maybe isn‘t a virus at all, following the work of a German Dr. (Lanka) and team and Andrew Kaufman.
Samuel usually is not adressing it in interviews even close to mainstream/non-conspiracy theory circles or very candid.
Also very early and publicly involved is Markus Haintz, an attorney and
Ralf Ludwig, another attorney, is to my knowledge one of the most public faces of Anwälte für Aufklärung (attorneys for enlightenment/clarification) and Klagepaten (godfathers for lawsuits). In fact there are now dozens of attorneys just for the demonstrations and apparently even some few judges for guidance.
There is media for the official querdenken channels but additionally tons of other streamers, interviewers and so on independently.
There are tons of other people involved of course but I only wanted to highlight the ones who to my impression are the most influential and show that we have medicals, lawyers and entrepreneurs – Alexander Ehrlich of #honkforhope organizing bus travels is worth a last mention – and generally independently thinking or former small scale tyranny resisting people involved.
Several members of the AfD party have now endorsed the demo on 29 August and the general sentiment of the resistance too. But none of them were instrumental in any way for this uprising and probably could not have been because of the stigma/demonization which is already too heavily associated with them.
I started to collect some videos for a playlist for music too but that at another time. It was surprising for me to see how many songs were written in the last months.
