Original article (in B/H/S) was published on 18/6/2024; Author: Marija Manojlović
Recent incidents in Germany, occurring just before the European Parliament elections, have sparked the spread of fake news on YouTube. These false reports suggest that Germany has declared a civil war and that the German chancellor announced the deportation of all migrants.
A newscast-style video (archived) posted on June 9, 2024, on YouTube, shows a man speaking about the situation in Germany in light of recent events – the murder of a German police officer by a migrant and an attack on three politicians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The video features the following title:
GERMANY ANNOUNCED IT IS IN CIVIL WAR
Claims that Germany has announced that it is in a civil war are repeated in the video’s description.
The man in the video refers to the statements of Alice Weidel, the president of the Alternative for Germany. In this segment, at 5:41 of the video, it is stated the following:
However, Alice Weidel, the president of the AfD, the strongest party in Germany at the moment, said that some things simply have to be resolved because it is not clear to her how, in addition to the BND, the intelligence service of Germany, and all law and order bodies, three members of AfD were attacked within one day. She said that this was no longer a war against the European Union, against the entire system, this was simply a war against the German state itself, where she told the citizens that they were no longer in a German democratic state, but that they were in a civil war and that that civil war needs to end as soon as possible, because she doesn’t understand how Olaf Scholz, together with President Steinmeier, allowed things like this to happen in Germany.
In the context of the policeman’s murder, the man in the video talks about the alleged change in the German Chancellor’s policy towards migrants before the European Parliament elections. He states that Scholz “up until recently advocated that migrants should be left alone, that they are fine, they help the economy”, but that the last statement contradicts this. At the 6:36 of the video, it is stated the following:
Until now, until two days ago, his statement to the media is that all migrants should be expelled, because they are definitely causing problems. Since the voting for the European Parliament is going on, it ends on June 10, they definitely have to change their politics a bit now because they are losing slowly but surely in the European Parliament and then there will be big changes, and in order for that to happen, they also change their political an ideology, such as the one implemented now by Olaf Scholz.
The video from YouTube was shared on Facebook (1, 2) and on the X social network.
What are the facts?
The video was published on Benjak Ilija‘s YouTube channel. This channel regularly publishes videos that look like news shows. Based on the account and the associated Facebook page, it can be concluded that the person from the video is the owner of the channel.
In the attack that took place on May 31 this year in the German city of Mannheim, at a demonstration organized by the anti-Islamic movement “Pax Europa”, according to DW, the attacker stabbed a total of six people, including a policeman who succumbed to his injuries. According to this German media, the 25-year-old attacker was born in Afghanistan and came to Germany as a teenager in 2014.
This event caused additional tensions ahead of the elections for the European Parliament, which were held last week (from June 6 to 9). The provincial committee of the Young Alternative, the youth movement of the Alternative for Germany party, organized a rally under the slogan “Remigration would prevent this act”. In response to this gathering, a second gathering of Mannheim citizens was organised, where those gathered accused the Alternative for Germany (AfD) of using the attack in Mannheim to gather votes.
A week after the attack, on June 6, 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressed the Parliament, focusing his speech on security and referring to the case of the murder of a police officer. In this context, he mentioned the deportation of migrants to Afghanistan and Syria, countries to which deportation was not carried out because they were considered unsafe. A transcript of Scholz’s speech was published on the federal government’s website, and it states the following:
But allow me to clarify: I am outraged when someone seeking protection commits the most serious crimes here. Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan. Serious criminals and those who pose a terrorist threat have no place here. In such cases, German security interests outweigh the protection interests of the perpetrators. That is why the Federal Ministry of the Interior is looking for legally and practically viable ways to achieve this. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is working to facilitate the deportation of criminals and dangerous people to Afghanistan.
The federal ministry is already having talks with Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries on practical implementation.
He announced the tightening of deportation regulations for persons who glorify and condone terrorist crimes.
So, it is clear that Scholz did not say that “all migrants should be expelled, because they are definitely causing problems”, as claimed in the video. He spoke about the perpetrators of crimes, those who represent a terrorist threat or support and approve of terrorist crimes. In addition, he previously said in his speech that more than 20 million citizens with an immigrant past live in Germany, who themselves are often victims of hate speech and violence, and that it is “absurd and shameful to place them under general suspicion”.
Numerous media reported Scholz’s messages. It is also clear from these articles that the German chancellor did not speak about migrants in general (1, 2).
Has Germany declared a civil war?
Before the elections for the European Parliament, several attacks on politicians of different parties were recorded in Germany. The media reported on the attack on three AfD politicians on June 8. Two city councillors in Karlsruhe and an AfD representative in the Saxon state parliament in Dresden were attacked. In his presentation, Benjak refers to this event and the alleged message of the president of the Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel, that the situation in this country is a civil war.
We could not find this statement. But even if she said that, it is clear that such an assessment did not come from the German government, as stated in the title of the video.
Several incidents were recorded in Germany before the elections, but claims that this country is in a civil war are not true. No credible media reported anything like that (1, 2). The usual definition of a civil war implies a violent conflict in which organized groups within one country fight for political control against the separatist goals of one of them or certain government policies (1, 2).
Therefore, we assess the claim suggesting that Germany has announced that it is in a civil war, published on YouTube, as fake news. We assess other publications of this claim as a distribution of fake news. We assess the claim that Scholz said “that all migrants should be expelled” as disinformation.
