{"id":196322,"date":"2019-10-15T07:41:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T07:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196322"},"modified":"2019-10-19T05:47:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T05:47:59","slug":"udo-ulfkotte-bought-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196322","title":{"rendered":"Udo Ulfkotte \u2013 Bought Journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Subtitled and transcribed by Terje Maloy &#8212; Off-Guardian Oct 6, 2019<\/h1>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3ZLgW3hgRBY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In 2014, the German journalist and writer Udo Ulfkotte published a book that created a big stir, describing how the journalistic profession is thoroughly corrupt and infiltrated by intelligence services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Although eagerly anticipated by many, the English translation of the book, <em>Bought Journalists<\/em>, does not seem to be forthcoming anytime soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">[We covered that story <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2018\/01\/08\/english-translation-of-udo-ulfkottes-bought-journalists-suppressed\/\">at the time<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>\u2013 Ed.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So I have made English subtitles and transcribed this still very relevant 2015-lecture for those that are curious about Ulfkotte\u2019s work. It covers many of the subjects described in the book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Udo Ulfkotte died of a heart attack in January 2017, in all likelihood part of the severe medical complications he got from his exposure to German-made chemical weapons supplied to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Transcription<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">[Only the first 49 minutes are translated; the second half of the lecture deals mostly with more local issues]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Introducer Oliver:<\/strong> I am very proud to have such a brave man amongst us: Udo Ulfkotte<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Udo Ulfkotte:<\/strong> Thanks\u2026Thanks for the invitation\u2026Thanks to Oliver. I heard to my great surprise from Oliver that he didn\u2019t know someone from the intelligence services (VVS) would be present. I wish him a warm welcome. I don\u2019t mean that as a joke, I heard this in advance, and got to know that Oliver didn\u2019t know. If he wants \u2013 if it is a man \u2013 he can wave. If not?\u2026 no?\u2026[laughter from the audience]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I\u2019m fine with that. You can write down everything, or record it; no problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To the lecture. We are talking about media. we are talking about truth. I don\u2019t want to sell you books or such things. Each one of us asks himself: Why do things develop like they do, even though the majority, or a lot of people shake their heads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The majority of people in Germany don\u2019t want nuclear weapons on our territory. But we have nuclear weapons here. The majority don\u2019t want foreign interventions by German soldiers. But we do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">What media narrates and the politicians say, and what the majority of the population believes \u2013 seems often obviously to be two different things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I can tell you this myself, from many years experience. I will start with very personal judgments, to tell you what my experiences with \u2018The Lying Media\u2019 were \u2013 I mean exactly that with the word \u2018lying\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I was born in a fairly poor family. I am a single child. I grew up on the eastern edge of the Ruhr-area. I studied Law, Political Science and Islamic Studies. Already in my student years, I had contact with the German Foreign Intelligence, BND. We will get back to that later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">From 1986 to 2003, I worked for a major German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), amongst other things as a war reporter. I spent a lot of time in Eastern and African countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Now to the subject of lying media. When I was sent to the Iran-Iraq war for the first time, the first time was from 1980 to July 1986, I was sent to this war to report for FAZ. The Iraqis were then \u2018the good guys\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I was bit afraid. I didn\u2019t have any experience as a war reporter. Then I arrived in Baghdad. I was fairly quickly sent along in a bus by the Iraqi army, the bus was full of loud, experienced war reporters, from such prestigious media as the BBC, several foreign TV-stations and newspapers, and me, poor newbie, who was sent to the front for the first time without any kind of preparation. The first thing I saw was that they all carried along cans of petrol. And I at once got bad consciousness, because I thought: \u00aboops, if the bus gets stuck far from a petrol station, then everyone chips in with a bit of diesel\u2019. I decided to in the future also carry a can before I went anywhere, because it obviously was part of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">We drove for hours through the desert, towards the Iraqi border. Approx. 20-30 kilometers from the border, there really was nothing. First of all no war. There were armored vehicles and tanks, burned-out long ago. The journalist left the bus, splashed the contents of the cans on the vehicles. We had Iraqi soldiers with us as an escort, with machine guns, in uniform. You have to imagine: tanks in a desert, burned out long ago, now put on fire. Clouds of smoke. And there the journalists assemble their cameras.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It was my first experience with media, truth in reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">While I was wondering what the hell I was going to report for my newspaper, they all lined up and started: Behind them were flames and plumes of smoke, and all the time the Iraqis were running in front of camera with their machine guns, casually, but with war in their gaze. And the reporters were ducking all the time while talking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So I gathered courage and asked one of the reporters: \u2018I understand one thing, they are great pictures, but why are they ducking all the time? \u2018<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Quite simply because there are machine guns on the audio track, and it looks very good at home.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That was several decades ago. It was in the beginning of my contact with war. I was thinking, the whole way back:\u2019Young man, you didn\u2019t see a war. You were in a place with a campfire. What are you going to tell?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I returned to Baghdad. There weren\u2019t any mobile phones then. We waited in Hotel Rashid and other hotels where foreigners stayed, sometimes for hours for an international telephone line. I first contacted my mother, not my newspaper. I was in despair, didn\u2019t know what to do, and wanted to get advice from an elder person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Then my mother shouted over the phone:\u2019My boy, you are alive!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I thought: \u2018How so? Is everything OK?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018My boy, we thought\u2026\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018What\u2019s the matter, mother?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018We saw on TV what happened around you\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">TV had already sent lurid stories, and I tried to calm my mother down, it didn\u2019t happen like that. She thought I had lost my mind from all the things that had happened in the war \u2013 she saw it with her own eyes!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I\u2019ll finish, because I am not here to make satire today. I just want to say that this was my first experience with truth in journalism and war reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That is, I was very shocked by the first contact, it was entirely different from what I had experienced. But it wasn\u2019t an exceptional case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In the beginning, I mentioned that I am from a fairly poor family. I had to work hard for everything. I was a single child, my father died when I was young. It didn\u2019t matter further on. But, I had a job, I had a degree, a goal in life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I now had the choice: Should I declare that the whole thing was nonsense, these reports? I was nothing, a newbie straight out of uni, in my first job. Or if I wanted to make money, to continue, look further. I chose the second option. I continued, and that for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Over these years, I gained lots of experience. When one comes from university to a big German newspaper \u2013 everything I say doesn\u2019t only apply to FAZ, you can take other German or European media. I had contact with other European journalists, from reputable media outlets. I later worked in other media. I can tell you: What I am about to tell you, I really discovered everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">What did I experience? If you, as a reporter, work either in state media financed by forced license fees, or in the big private media companies, then you can\u2019t write what you want yourself, what you feel like. There are certain guidelines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Roughly speaking: everyone knows that you won\u2019t, for example in the Springer-newspapers \u2013 Bild, die Welt \u2013 get published articles extremely critical of Israel. They stand no chance there, because one has to sign a statement that one is pro-Israel, that one won\u2019t question the existence of the state of Israel or Israeli points of view, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">There are some sort of guidelines in all the big media companies. But that isn\u2019t all: I learned very fast that if one doesn\u2019t \u2013 I don\u2019t mean this negatively \u2013 want to be stuck in the lower rungs of editors, if one wants to rise; for me this rise was that I was allowed to travel with the Chancellor, ministers, the president and politicians, in planes owned by the state; then one has to keep to certain subjects. I learned that fast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That is, if one gets to follow a politician \u2013 and this hasn\u2019t changed to this day \u2013 I soon realized that when I followed the president or Chancellor Helmut Kohl etc, one of course isn\u2019t invited because your name is Udo Ulfkotte, but because you belong to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Then a certain type of reporting is expected. Which one? Forget my newspaper, this applies in general. At the start of the trip, the journalist gets a memo \u2013 today it is electronic \u2013 in his hand. If you are traveling abroad, it is info about the country, or the speeches that will be held. This file contains roughly what will happen during this trip. In addition there are short conversations, briefings with the politician\u2019s press manager. He then explains to you how one views this trip. Naturally, you should see it the same way. No one says it in that way. But is is approximately what one would have reported.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">All the time you\u2026no one tells you to write it this or that way\u2026but you know quite exactly that if you DON\u2019T write it this or that way,then you won\u2019t get invited next time. Your media outlet will be invited, but they say \u2018we don\u2019t want him along\u2019. Then you are out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Naturally you want to be invited. Of course it is wonderful to travel abroad and you can behave like a pig, no one cares. You can buy what you want, because you know that when you return, you won\u2019t be checked. You can bring what you want. I had colleagues who went along on a trip to the US.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They brought with them \u2013 it was an air force plane \u2013 a Harley Davidson, in parts. They sold it when they were back in Germany, and of course earned on it. Anyway, just like the carpet-affair with that development minister, this is of course not a single instance. No one talks about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">You get invited if you have a certain way of seeing things. Which way to see things? Where and how is this view of the world formed? I very often get asked: <em>\u2018Where are these people behind the curtain who pulls the wires, so that everything gets told in a fairly similar way?\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In the big media in Germany \u2013 just look yourself \u2013 who sit in the large transatlantic think-tanks and foundations,the foundation The Atlantic Bridge, all these organizations, and how is one influenced there? I can tell from my own experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">We mustn\u2019t talk only theoretically. I was invited by the think-tank The German Marshall Fund of the United States as a fellow. I was to visit the United States for six weeks. It was fully paid. During these six weeks I could\u2026this think-tank has very close connections to the CIA to this day, they acquired contacts in the CIA for me and they got me access to American politicians, to everyone I wanted. Above all, they showered me with gifts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Already before the journey with German Marshall Fund, I experienced plenty of bought journalism. This hasn\u2019t to do with a particular media outlet. You see, I was invited and didn\u2019t particularly reflect over it, by billionaires, for example sultan Quabboos of Oman on the Arabian peninsula.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">When sultan Qabboos invited, and a poor boy like me could travel to a country with few inhabitants but immense wealth, where the head of state had the largest yachts in the world, his own symphony orchestra which plays for him when he wants \u2013 by the way he bought a pub close to Garmisch-Patenkirchen, because he is a Muslim believer, and someone might see him if he drank in his own country, so he rather travels there. The place he bought every day fly in fresh lamb from Ireland and Scotland with his private jet. He is also the head of an environmental foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But this is a digression. If such a person, who is so incredibly rich, invites someone like me, then I arrive first class. I had never traveled first class before. We arrive, and a driver is waiting for me. He carries your suitcase or backpack. You have a suite in the hotel. And from the very start, you are showered with gifts. You get a platinum or gold coin. A hand-weaved carpet or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I interviewed the sultan, several times. He asked me what I wanted. I answered among other things a diving course. I wanted to learn how to dive. He flew in a PADI-approved instructor from Greece. I was there for two weeks and got my first diving certificate. On later occasions, the sultan flew me in several times, and the diving instructor. I got a certificate as rescue diver, all paid for by the sultan. You see, when one is attended to in such a way, then you know that you are bought. For a certain type of journalism. In the sultan\u2019s country, there is no freedom of the press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">There are no human rights. It is illegal to import many writings, because the sultan does not wish so. There are reports about human rights violations, but my eyes are blind. I reported, like all German media when they report about the Sultanate of Oman, to this day, only positive things. The great sultan, who is wonderful. The fantastic country of the fairy tale prince, overshadowing everything else \u2013 because I was bought.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Apart from Oman, many others have bought me. They also bought colleagues. I got many invitations through the travel section in my big newspaper. 5-star. The reportage never mentioned that I was bought, by country A or B or C. Yemenia, the Yemeni state airline, invited me to such a trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I didn\u2019t report about the dirt and dilapidation in the country, because I was influenced by this treatment,I only reported positively, because I wanted to come back. The Yemenis asked me when I had returned to Frankfurt what I wished\u2026In jest, I said \u00abyour large prawns, from the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean, they were spectacular.\u00bb, from the seaport of Mocha (Mocha-coffee is named after it). Two days later, Yemenia flew in a buffet for the editorial office, with prawns and more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Of course we were bought. We were bought in several ways. In your situation: when you buy a car or something else, you trust consumer tests. Look closer. How well is the car tested? I know of no colleagues, no journalists, who do testing of cars, that aren\u2019t bribed \u2013 maybe they do exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They get unlimited access to a car from the big car manufacturers, with free petrol and everything else. I had a work car in my newspaper, if not, I might have exploited this. I had a BMW or Mercedes in the newspaper. But there are, outside the paper, many colleagues who only have this kind of vehicle all year round. They are invited to South Africa, Malaysia, USA, to the grandest travels, when a new car is presented.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Why? So that they will write positively about the car. But it doesn\u2019t say in these reports \u00abAdvertisement from bought journalists\u00bb.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But that is the reality. You should also know \u2013 since we are on the subjects of tests \u2013 who owns which test magazines? Who owns the magazine Eco-test? It is owned by the Social Democrats. More than a hundred magazines belong to the Social Democrats. It isn\u2019t about only one party, but many editorial rooms have political allegiance. Behind them are party political interests.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I mentioned the sultan of Oman and the diving course, and I have mentioned German Marshall Fund. Back to the US and the German Marshall Fund. There one told me, they knew exactly, \u2018hello, you were on a diving course in Oman\u2026\u2019 The CIA knew very precisely. And the CIA also gave me something: The diving gear. I received the diving gear in the United States, and I received in the US, during my 6-week stay there, an invitation from the state of Oklahoma, from the governor. I went there. It was a small ceremony, and I received an honorary citizenship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I am now honorary citizen of an American state. And in this certificate, it is written that I will only cover the US positively. I accepted this honorary citizenship and was quite proud of it. I proudly told about it to a colleague who worked in the US. He said \u2018ha, I already have 31 of these honorary citizenships!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I don\u2019t tell about this to be witty, today I am ashamed, really.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I was greedy. I accepted many advantages that a regular citizen at my age in my occupation doesn\u2019t have, and shouldn\u2019t have. But I perceived it \u2013 and that is no excuse \u2013 as entirely normal, because my colleagues around me all did the same. But this isn\u2019t normal. When journalists are invited to think-tanks in the US, like German Marshall Fund, Atlantic Bridge, it is to \u2018bring them in line\u2019, for in a friendly way to make them complicit, naturally to buy them, to grease them with money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">This has quite a few aspects that one normally doesn\u2019t talk about. When I for the first time was in Southern Africa, in the 80s, Apartheid still existed in South Africa, segregated areas for blacks and whites. We didn\u2019t have any problems with this in my newspaper, we received fully paid journeys from the Apartheid regime to do propaganda work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I was invited by the South-African gold industry, coal industry, tourist board. In the first invitation, this trip was to Namibia \u2013 I arrived tired to the hotel room in Windhoek and a dark woman lay in my bed. I at once left the room, went down to the reception and said \u2018excuse me, but the room is already occupied\u2019 [laughter from the audience]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Without any fuss I got another room.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Next day at the breakfast table, this was a journalist trip, my colleagues asked me \u2018how was yours?\u2019 Only then I understood what had happened. Until then, I had believed it was a silly coincidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">With this I want to describe which methods are used, maybe to film journalists in such situations, buy, make dependent. Quite simply to win them over to your side with the most brutal methods, so that they are \u2018brought in line\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">This doesn\u2019t happen to every journalist. It would be a conspiracy theory if I said that behind every journalist, someone pulls the wires.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">No. Not everyone has influence over the masses. When you \u2013 I don\u2019t mean this negatively \u2013 write about folk costume societies or if you work with agriculture or politics, why should anyone from the upper political spheres have an interest in controlling the reporting? As far as I know, this doesn\u2019t happen at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But if you work in one of the big media, and want up in this world, if you want to travel with politicians, heads of state, with CEOs, who also travel on these planes, then it happens. Then you are regularly bought, you are regularly observed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Udo-Ulfkotte.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-105178\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Udo-Ulfkotte.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"330\" height=\"153\" \/><\/a>I said earlier that I already during my study days had contact with the intelligence services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I will quickly explain this to you, because it is very important for this lecture.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I studied law, Political Science and Islamology, among other places in Freiburg. At the very beginning of my study, just before end of the term, a professor approached me. Professors were then still authority figures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He came with a brochure, and asked me: \u2018Mr. Ulfkotte, what are your plans for this vacation?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I couldn\u2019t very well say that I first planned to work a bit at a building site, for then to grab my backpack and see the ocean for the first time in my life, to Italy, \u2018la dolce vita\u2019, flirting with girls, lie on the beach and be a young person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I wondered how I would break it to him. He then came with a brochure [Ulfkotte imitating professor]:<em>\u2018I have something for you\u2026a seminar, Introduction to Conflict Studies, two weeks in Bonn\u2026I am sure you would want to participate!\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I wondered how I would tell this elderly gentleman that I wanted to flirt with girls on the beach. Then he said \u2018you will get 20 Marks per day as support, paid train journey, money for books 150 Marks\u2026You will naturally get board and lodging.\u2019 He didn\u2019t stop telling me what I would receive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It buzzed around in my head that I had to achieve everything myself, work hard. I thought \u2018You have always wanted to participate in a seminar on Introduction to Conflict Studies!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So I went to Bonn from Freiburg, and I saw other students who had this urge to participate in this seminar. There were also girls one could flirt with, about twenty people. The whole thing was very strange, because we sat in a room like this one, there were desks and a lectern, and there sat some older men and a woman, they always wrote something down. They asked us about things; What we thought of East Germany, we had to do role play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The whole thing was a bit strange, but it was well paid. We didn\u2019t reflect any further. It was very strange that in this house, in Ubierstra\u00dfe 88 in Bonn, we weren\u2019t allowed to go to the second floor. There was a chain over the stairs, it was taboo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">We were allowed to go to the basement, there were constantly replenished supplies of new books that we were allowed to get for free. Ebay didn\u2019t exist then, but we could still sell them used. Anyway, it was curious, but at the end of the fortnight, we were allowed to go up these stairs, where we got an invitation to a continuation course in Conflict Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">After four such seminars, that is, after two years, someone asked me \u2018you have probably wondered what we are doing here\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He explained that a recruitment board from the intelligence services had participated. But I had no idea that the seminar Introduction to Conflict Studies was arranged by the defense forces and run by the foreign intelligence service BND, to have a closer look at potential candidates among the students, not to commit them. They only asked if they, after four such seminars, possibly could contact me later, in my occupation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They gave me a lot of money. My mother has always taught me to be polite. So I said \u2018please do\u2019, and they came to me. I was then working in the newspaper FAZ from 1986, straight after my studies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Then the intelligence services came fairly soon to me. Why am I telling you this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The newspaper knew very soon. It is also written in my reference, therefore I can say it loud and clear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I had very close contact with the intelligence service BND.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Two persons from BND came regularly to the paper, to a visiting room. And there were occasions when the report not only was given, but also that BND had written articles, largely ready to go, that were published in the newspaper under my byline.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I highlight certain things to explain them. But if I had said here: \u2018There are media that are influenced by BND\u2019, you could rightly say that \u2018these are conspiracy theories, can you document it?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I CAN document it. I can say, this and that article, with my byline in the paper, is written by the intelligence services, because what is written there, I couldn\u2019t have known. I couldn\u2019t have known what existed in some cave or other in Libya, what secret thing were there, what was being built there. This was all things that BND wanted published. It wasn\u2019t like this only in FAZ.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It was like this also in other media. I told about it. If we had rule of law, there would now be an investigation commission. Because the political parties would stand up, regardless of if they are on the left, in the center or right, and say: What this Ulfkotte fella says and claims he can document, this should be investigated. Did this occur in other places? Or is it still ongoing?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I can tell you: Yes it still exists. I know colleagues who still have this close contact. One can probably show this fairly well until a few years ago. But I would find it wonderful if this investigation commission existed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But it will obviously not happen, because no one has an interest in doing so. Because then the public would realize how closely integrated politics, media, and the secret services are in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That is, one often sees in reporting, whether it is from the local paper, regional papers, TV-channels, national tabloids and so-called serious papers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Put them side by side, and you will discover that more than 90% looks almost identical. A lot of subjects and news, that are not being reported at all, or they are \u2013 I claim reported very one-sided. One can only explain this if one knows the structures in the background, how media is surrounded, bought and \u2018brought onboard\u2019 by politics and the intelligence services; Where politics and intelligence services form a single unity. There is an intelligence coordinator by the Chancellor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I can tell you, that under the former coordinator Bernd Schmidbauer, under Kohl, I walked in and out of the Chancellery and received stacks of secret and confidential documents, which I shouldn\u2019t have received.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They were so many that we in the newspaper had own archive cabinets for them. Not only did I receive these documents,but Schmidbauer should have been in jail if we had rule of law. Or there should have been a parliamentary commission or an investigation, because he wasn\u2019t allowed\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For example if I couldn\u2019t bring along the documents if the case was too hot, there was another trick. They locked me in a room. In this room were the documents, which I could look through. I could record it all on tape, photograph them or write them down. When I was done, I could call on the intercom, so they could lock me out. There were thousands of these tricks. Anonymous documents that I and my colleagues needed could be placed in my mail box.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">These are of course illegal things. BUT, you ONLY get them if you \u2018toe the line\u2019 with politics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If I had written that Chancellor Helmut Kohl is stupid, a big idiot, or about what Schmidbauer did, I would of course not have received more. That is, if you today, in newspapers, read about \u2018soon to be revealed exposures, we will publish a big story based on material based on intelligence\u2019, then none of these media have dug a tunnel under the security services and somehow got hold of something secret. It is rather that they work so well with intelligence services, with the military counterespionage, the foreign intelligence, police intelligence etc, that if they have got hold of internal documents, it is because they cooperate so well that they received them as a reward for well performed service.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">You see, in this way one is in the end bought. One is bought to such a degree that at one point one can\u2019t exit this system anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If I describe how you are supplied with prostitutes, bribed with cars, money; I tried to write down everything I received in gifts, everything I was bribed with. I stopped doing so several years ago, more than a decade ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It doesn\u2019t make it any better, but today I regret everything. But I know that it goes this way with many journalists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It would make me very happy if journalists stood up and said they won\u2019t participate in this any longer, and that they think this is wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But I see no possibility, because media corporations in any case are doing badly. Where should a journalist find work the next day? It isn\u2019t so that tens of thousands of employers are waiting for you. It is the other way round. Tens of thousands of journalists are looking for work or commissions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That is, from pure desperation one is happy to be bribed. If a newsroom stands behind or not an article that in reality is advertising, doesn\u2019t matter, one goes along. I know some, even respected journalists, who want to leave this system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But imagine if you are working in one of the state channels, that you stand up and tell what you have received. How will that be received by your colleagues? That you have political ulterior motives etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">September 30 [2015], a few days ago, Chancellor Merkel invited all the directors in the state channels to her in the Chancellery. I will claim that she talked with them about how one should report the Chancellors politics. Who of you [in the audience] heard about this incident? 3-4-5? So a small minority. But this is reality. Merkel started already 6 years ago, at the beginning of the financial crisis, to invite chief editors\u2026..she invited chief editors in the large media corporations, with the express wish that media should embellish reality, in a political way. This could have been only claims, one could believe me or not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But a couple of journalists were there, they told about it. Therefore I repeat: Merkel invited the chief editors several times, and told them she didn\u2019t want the population to be truthfully and openly informed about the problems out there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For example, the background for the financial crisis. If the citizens knew how things were, they would run to the bank and withdraw their money. So beautifying everything; everything is under control; your savings are safe; just smile and hold hands \u2013 everything will be fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In such a way it should be reported. Ladies and gentlemen, what I just said can be documented. These are facts, not a conspiracy theory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I formulated it a bit satirically, but I ask myself when I see how things are in this country: Is this the democracy described in the Constitution? Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Where one has to be afraid if one doesn\u2019t agree with the ruling political correctness, if one doesn\u2019t want to get in trouble. Is this the republic our parents and grandparents fought for, that they built?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I claim that we more and more \u2013 as citizens \u2013 are cowards \u2018toeing the line\u2019, who don\u2019t open our mouths.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is so nice to have plurality and diversity of opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But it is at once clamped down on, today fairly openly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Of my experiences with journalism, I can in general say that I have quit all media I have to pay for, for the reasons mentioned. Then the question arises, \u2018but which pay-media can I trust?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Naturally there are ones I support. They are definitely political, I\u2019ll add. But they are all fairly small. And they won\u2019t be big anytime soon. But I have quit all big media that I used to subscribe to, Der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine, etc. I would like to not having to pay the TV-license fee, without being arrested because I won\u2019t pay fines. But maybe someone here in the audience can tell me how to do so without all these problems?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Either way, I don\u2019t want to financially support this kind of journalism. I can only give you the advice to get information from alternative, independent media and all the forums that exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I\u2019m not advertising for any of them. Some of you probably know that I write for the publishing house Kopp. But there are so many portals. Every person is different in political viewpoint, culturally etc. The only thing uniting us, whether we are black or white, religious or non-religious, right or left, or whatever; we all want to know the truth. We want to know what really happens out there, and exactly in the burning political questions: asylum seekers, refugees, the financial crisis, bad infrastructure, one doesn\u2019t know how it will continue. Precisely with this background, is it even more important that people get to know the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And it is to my great surprise that I conclude that we in media, as well as in politics, have a guiding line.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To throw more and more dust in the citizens\u2019 eyes to calm them down. What is the sense in this? One can have totally different opinions on the subject of refugees with good reasoning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But facts are important for you as citizens to decide the future. That is, how many people will arrive? How will it affect my personal affluence? Or will it affect my affluence at all? Will the pensions shrink? etc. Then you can talk with people about this, quite openly. But to say that we should open all borders, and that this won\u2019t have any negative consequences, is very strange. What I now say isn\u2019t a plug for my books. I know that some of them are on the table in front.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I\u2019m not saying this so that you will buy books. I am saying this for another reason that soon will be clear. I started to write books on certain subjects 18 years ago. They have sold millions. It is no longer about you buying my books. It is important that you hear the titles, then you will see a certain line throughout the last ten years. One can have different opinions about this line, but I have always tried to describe, based on my subjective experiences, formed over many years in the Middle East and Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That there will be migration flows, from people from culture areas that are like; if one could compare a cultural area with an engine, that one fills petrol in a diesel engine then everyone knows what will happen, the engine is great, diesel is great, but if there too much petrol, then the engine starts to splutter and stop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I have tried to make you aware of this, with drastic and less drastic words. What we can expect, and ever faster. The book titles are SOS Occident; Warning Civil War; No Black,Red, Yellow [the colors in the German flag], Holy War in Europe; Mecca Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I just want to say, when politicians and media today claim no one could have predicted it, everything is a complete surprise; Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not at all surprising. The migration flows, for years warnings have been coming from international organizations, politicians, experts, exactly about what happened and it is predictable, if we had a map over North Africa and the Middle East..<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If the West continues to destabilize countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, country by country, Iraq when we toppled Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan. We as Europeans and Germans have spent tens of billions on a war where we allegedly defend peace and liberty, at the mountain range Hindu Kush [in Afghanistan]. And here, in front of our own door, we soon have Hindu Kush.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">We have no stabilization in Afghanistan. Dozens of German soldiers have lost their lives for nothing. We have a more unstable situation than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">You can have your own opinions. I am only saying that these refugee flows didn\u2019t fall from the sky. It is predicable, that if I bomb and destabilize a country, that people \u2013 it is always so in history \u2013 it hasn\u2019t anything to do with the Middle East or North Africa. I have seen enough wars in Africa. Naturally they created refugee flows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But all of us didn\u2019t want to see this. We haven\u2019t prepared. And now one is reacting in full panic, and what is most disconcerting with this, is when media and politicians, allegedly from deepest inner conviction, say: \u2018this was all a complete surprise!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Are they drunk? What are they smoking? What sort of pills are they eating? That they behave this way?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>End transcription<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The transcription has been edited for clarity, and may differ from the spoken word. The subtitles and transcription are for the first 49 minutes of the lecture only. Subtitled and transcribed by Terje Maloy. This article is Creative Commons 4.0 for non-commercial purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2019\/10\/06\/watch-udo-ulfkotte-bought-journalists\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2014 one of Germany\u2019s foremost journalists Udo Ulfkotte accused his fellow professionals of being essentially intellectual whores servicing the ruling elite.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,42,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196322"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196325,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196322\/revisions\/196325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}