Germany grapples with divisive impact of COVID-19 pandemic

German virologist Christian Drosten became a prominent national figure during the COVID-19 pandemic. He recently claimed that history is now being rewritten by dishonest actors who want to polish their public image. "The dispute over fundamental issues did not exist in science in the way it was presented in talk shows. That was infotainment," Drosten told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "The pandemic is history, and we shouldn't twist it."

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), the populist party led by Sahra Wagenknecht, who opposed state-imposed measures to prevent the spread of the virus, as did the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), have been pushing for an investigative committee to examine policy-making during the pandemic. The BSW accuse the government of exerting undue political influence on the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's federal disease control agency, and the "suppression of dissenting positions in public discourse," according to the motion.

Mask mandates, curfews, school closures, bans on demonstrations and mandatory vaccinations for health and care workers: The measures introduced by the government — first under Angela Merkel of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) then under current center-left coalition headed by Social Democrat (SPD) Olaf Scholz — to stop the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate its impact were sometimes highly controversial.

But while some of those in charge of policy-making at the time have admitted that mistakes were made and they would do certain things differently now, they also point to the unprecedented scale of the crisis as the health service was pushed to its limit. Germany saw 174,979 deaths and 38,437,756 cases by December 19, 2023, after the first person in the country tested positive on January 27, 2020.

For now it is clear that there will be no official review of pandemic policy because the coalition government cannot agree on the form it should take. The ruling center-left SPD says that a review would only make sense on an equal footing with the states, who were tasked with implementing measures. The neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) want an investigative committee established within the Bundestag.

Federal audits and court cases underway

The Federal Audit Office and the German courts have been busily crunching the numbers and adjudicating the slew of court cases that have arisen in its wake.

The Health Ministry is currently engaged in a protracted legal battle with suppliers of FFP2 masks who are suing the government for billions in unpaid invoices. Then Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) imposed a deadline on the deliveries of masks which the Cologne Higher Regional Court then ruled invalid. The case is now with the Supreme Court. 

Questions over Spahn's tenure as health minister have also been raised after the Federal Audit Office (BRH) criticized his department for its "massive over-procurement" of masks, leading to half of them being destroyed because they were not needed.

Querdenker figureheads accused of fraud 

Spahn's successor, Karl Lauterbach (SPD), a trained doctor, advocated for strict measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 both before and after he entered office. That has made him a hate figure for many in Germany's Querdenker ("lateral thinkers") scene, made up of anti-vaxxers and critics of the COVID-19 restrictions.

The Querdenker scene is under observation by Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), for its "delegitimization of the state relevant to the protection of the constitution."

In April 2022, suspected members of the "Vereinte Patrioten" (United Patriots") terrorist group linked to the Querdenker scene and far-right extremist Reichsbürger movement, were arrested for planning to overthrow the government and kidnap Lauterbach. The health minister remains under round-the-clock protection to this day.

German sociologist Matthias Quent described Querdenken 711 in Stuttgart, one of the first Querdenker groups to form in Germany, as a prime example of the radicalization of the scene, members of which strategically presented themselves as "resistance fighters against supposed dictatorial injustice."

But prominent figures on the Querdenker scene have also been accused of corruption and pandemic profiteering. Michael Ballweg, Querdenken 711's founder and head, is alleged to have raised more than €1.2 million ($1.3 million) via public appeals for donations and used more than €575,000 for his own purposes.

Former lawyer and leading figure in the Querdenker scene Reiner Fuellmich is also accused of siphoning off €700,000 from a foundation he co-founded called the "Corona-Ausschuss" ("Corona Committee"), a self-appointed "expert committee" that spread misleading claims about the disease and vaccinations. Fuellmich, who was once top candidate for the party Die Basis, faces charges of embezzlement and fraud. He was convicted of slander and inciting hatred after he described scientists from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's federal disease control agency, as "mass murderers." 

Controversy fueled by the Robert Koch Institute files

The ongoing controversy over the government's handling of the pandemic has been in part been fueled by the initial refusal of the Robert Koch Institute to publish the minutes of the meetings its COVID-19 crisis team held during the pandemic.

In April 2023, the RKI first released files from the period January 2020 to April 2021 in response to a Freedom of Information request. They were initially heavily redacted versions, which RKI said was to protect the rights of third parties, intellectual property rights, public security and international relations — but this only provided fodder for conspiracy theorists.

The RKI subsequently published the files in largely unredacted form in May 2024. Just two months later a fully unredacted cache of files was published online which had allegedly been leaked by an RKI employee. They further fueled controversy over issues such as the RKI's risk assessment of the virus, the effectiveness of wearing masks and vaccines, and the impact of lockdowns. The RKI has not commented on the authenticity of the leaked files and says it continues to plan to publish the remaining files "as far as possible without redactions."

Long-term divisions in Germany 

The legal framework for the last remaining pandemic protection measures expired in Germany on April 7, 2023, not long before the UN World Health Organization declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency. But new variants of the virus continue to circulate and people with long COVID are still living with the consequences of the pandemic day in day out.

At least 65 million people worldwide are estimated to have long COVID, based on an estimate that 10% of people infection with the virus experience long-lasting symptoms. 

In an interview with Der Spiegel news magazine in March 2024, Lauterbach said the country is much better prepared for the next pandemic today, at least technically. As a society, Lauterbach feels that Germany is much less prepared because of a "massively mobilized subgroup" that rejects infection control measures and is against vaccinations. "It would make any future pandemic more difficult to deal with politically," he explained.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg-Huang.

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