Udo Ulfkotte

Udo Ulfkotte (20 January 1960 – 13 January 2017) was a German journalist and conspiracy theorist[1] who maintained that journalists (including himself) and leading newspapers published material that had been fed to them, or bought, by the CIA and other Western intelligence and propaganda agencies. Several media outlets rejected Ulfkotte's claims as frivolous.[2] He was a political journalist for the German main daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) for several years until 2003.[3] From the end of the 1990s, he wrote several bestsellers and increasingly advocated right-wing populist, Islamophobic, and conspiracy-theory positions.[4][5][6][7][8]

Udo Ulfkotte
Ulfkotte at a Pegida demonstration, p2015
Born(1960-01-20)20 January 1960
Lippstadt, West Germany
Died13 January 2017(2017-01-13) (aged 56)
OccupationJournalist

Career

Ulfkotte studied jurisprudence and politics in Freiburg and London. Between 1986 and 1998, Ulfkotte lived predominantly in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan.[9][10]

Ulfkotte was on the staff of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation from 1999 to 2003.[11] He won the civic prize of the Annette Barthelt Foundation in 2003.[12]

Political activism

Ulfkotte was involved in the far-right Pro Germany Citizens' Movement.[13] In June 2007, he signed the anti-Islam organisation Federal Association of Citizens' Movements (BDB)'s "Wertheimer Appell" against their supposed "creeping Islamisation" of Germany.[13] The BDB merged with Ulfkotte's Pax Europa[14] organisation to form the Citizens' Movement Pax Europa (BPE), but Ulfkotte left this in 2008 after an internal dispute.[13] Pax Europa was affiliated to the anti-Muslim Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) alliance and approached the far-right Belgian party Vlaams Belang (VB) for their assistance.[15] It worked with them to organise an anti-Islamic 9/11 anniversary march in Brussels in 2007, but mayor Freddy Thielemans refused to license it and it was eventually cancelled, leading to a split between Ulfkotte and SIOE.[15]

Ulfkotte had planned to run for the Hamburg local elections in 2008, as number two on the Centre Party's list,[16] but later withdrew in June/July 2007. In July 2007, Ulfkotte announced he would found a new national party,[14] but this effort failed.[17]

Ulfkotte was a speaker at rallies of the right-wing anti-Islam Pegida movement[18] and the right-wing party AfD.[19]

Bought Journalists

In 2014, Ulfkotte's book Gekaufte Journalisten (German Bought Journalists: How Politicians, Intelligence Agencies and High Finance Control Germany’s Mass Media) was published. In this work, he stated that the CIA and other secret services pay money to journalists to report stories in a certain light. According to Ulfkotte, the CIA and German intelligence (BND) bribe journalists in Germany to write pro-NATO propaganda articles, and it is well understood that one may lose their media job if they fail to comply with the pro-Western agenda. This is part of a larger pattern of media corruption he describes in the book.[20] An English translation was released under the title Presstitutes.[21] Several media outlets rejected Ulfkotte's claims as frivolous.[2]

Der Spiegel observed that "Ulfkotte's book was published by Kopp, a melting pot for conspiracy theorists. Kopp publishes works by ufologists, and by authors who claim the Americans destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center themselves in 2001. Ulfkotte's book was on the bestseller lists for months. According to the magazine, "Bought Journalists is the bible of all those who have renounced their faith in the German media. Ulfkotte's critics see the book as a vendetta against the FAZ, which he left on bad terms."[22]

Death

Ulfkotte died from a heart attack on 13 January 2017 at the age of 56, having suffered from several such health emergences previously.[23]

Works
  • Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession Progressive Press (October 18, 2019), ISBN 1-61577-017-8, ISBN 978-1-61577-017-5. In English.

The following works are all written in German. English translations of the titles are included here.

  • Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News Next Revelation Press (May 15, 2017), ISBN 1-944505-45-8, ISBN 978-1-944505-45-5
  • Holy War in Europe. Eichborn, Frankfurt/Main, 2007, ISBN 3-8218-5577-0
  • The War in the Dark. The True Power of the Secret Services. Eichborn, Frankfurt/Main, 2006, ISBN 3-8218-5578-9
  • The War in our Cities. As Radical Islamics Infiltrate Germany. Eichborn, Frankfurt/Main 2003, ISBN 3-596-16340-4
  • Restaurant economics. Goldmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-15125-2
  • Classified Material Federal Intelligence Service. Koehler und Amelang, Munich, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7338-0214-4
  • Over work and Expenditure for Paperback. Heyne, Munich updated 1998, ISBN 3-453-14143-1
  • Prophets of the Terror. The Secret Network of the Islamics. Goldmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-15196-1
  • Journalists Lie in Such a Way. The Fight for Ratios and Editions. Bertelsmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-570-00199-7
  • Gene Code J. Novel, Eichborn, Frankfurt/Main, 2001, ISBN 3-8218-0860-8
  • Market Place of the Thieves. Bertelsmann, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-570-00198-9
  • Boundless Criminality. What politics and mass media keep silent about the crimes committed by migrants. Bertelsmann, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-570-00200-4

References
  1. "Post-Truthers: Welcome to Conspiracy Central, Berlin". www.handelsblatt.com. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  2. Rechtspopulismus: Umstrittener Publizist Udo Ulfkotte ist tot in: Spiegel Online, 14 January 2017
  3. "Huffingtonpost.de (Google Übersetzer)". Translate.google.de. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  4. Philip Oltermann "Angela Merkel and the revival of the sick man of Europe" The Guardian 18 September 2015: "rightwing firebrand Udo Ulfkotte [author of] Mecca Germany: The Silent Islamisation"
  5. Patricia Anne Simpson, Helga Druxes, Digital Media Strategies of the Far Right in Europe and the United States, Lexington Books, 6 May 2015 p.125: "Udo Ulfkotte and Eva Herman... now promote right populist esoteric views"
  6. Wolfgang Benz: Quellentext: Islamfeindlichkeit und Antisemitismus ähneln einander. In: Dossier Rechtsextremismus der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 17. März 2014.
  7. Yasemin Shooman: »… weil ihre Kultur so ist«. Narrative des antimuslimischen Rassismus. transcript, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-8376-2866-1, S. 92.
  8. Heribert Schiedel: Extreme Rechte in Europa. Steinbauer, Wien 2011, ISBN 978-3-902494-54-2, S. 46.
  9. "'German Wilders' attacks Islam – radionetherlands.nl". Radionetherlands.nl. 13 June 2007. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  10. Ulfkotte, Dr. Udo. "Download – Homepage Dr. Udo Ulfkotte". Ulfkotte.de. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  11. "Neoconservative project author Ulfkotte plans anti-Islamic party". Translate.google.de. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  12. "Staatspreis". Annette-barthelt-stiftung.de. Archived from the original on 30 December 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  13. Humayun Ansari, Farid Hafez, From the Far Right to the Mainstream: Islamophobia in Party Politics and the Media, Campus Verlag, 2012, pp. 39–40
  14. Cas Mudde The Populist Radical Right: A Reader, Taylor & Francis, 4 Oct 2016, p.121
  15. Diab, Khaled (11 September 2007). "Villains of the pax". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
  16. "hamburg kompakt". Die Tageszeitung: Taz. 23 April 2007. p. 24. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  17. Stefan Weidner "Why the German Media are Courting the Anti-Islam Movement" Qantara 2010
  18. David Crossland "Germany slams anti-Islam group as it draws thousands onto streets" The National January 6, 2015: "One of the speakers at the rally, Udo Ulfkotte, a journalist, complained about the 'Islamisation of our cemeteries', demanded legislation to repatriate criminal foreigners and railed against the influx of refugees saying: 'I only see strong young men.'"
  19. Madeleine Reckmann "Ulfkotte droht auf Facebook" Frankfurter Rundschau 29.03.2015
  20. "Periodistas alemanes comprados". El Mundo. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  21. "Current Bestsellers | Progressive Press". 26 February 2021. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
  22. Markus Brauck et al "Germans Lose Faith in the Fourth Estate" Der Spiegel February 24, 2016
  23. "Udo Ulfkotte: Umstrittener Publizist und ehemaliger FAZ-Journalist ist tot". Spiegel Online (in German). 14 January 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
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