FAKE NEWS: The Romanians are electing into office foreigners who work as intelligence officers for hostile countries

FAKE NEWS: The Romanians are electing into office foreigners who work as intelligence officers for hostile countries
© Facebook Dominic Fritz  

Timișoara’s mayor, Dominic Fritz, is working for German intelligence, according to a so-called investigation distributed by Sputnik. The story bears all the hallmarks of fake news promoting the Russian narrative (which is similar to that of the Romanian national Communism) of the West as a hostile force.

NEWS: “An investigation carried out by Matei Alexandru for Criticii.ro has brought to light a number of more than interesting details about Dominic Samuel Fritz, raising “reasonable doubt” over his connections with the powerful German Intelligence Service.

A first noteworthy observation: despite being a quasi-obscure figure, Dominic Fritz “is omnipresent on social media and in the press, which denotes he is being lobbied and groomed as the candidate who will represent USR-PLUS in the presidential race”. […]

The journalist lays out the bomb: “In his résumé, Dominic Fritz appears as a former employer of the German company GIZ GmbH, known to front the activity of German intelligence, according to official documents of the Bundestag (the German Parliament)”.

And, be advised, this is not a mere supposition, but it is grounded on the statement of the German MP Heike Hänsel, who asked the federal Government “if it had any knowledge of the fact that BND is using GIZ GmbH as a front to cover up its foreign espionage activities, and that several German secret agents, who work for GIZ GmbH, had their covers blown in Pakistan, which triggered a diplomatic scandal”.”

NARRATIVES: 1. Romanians elect foreign citizens in public offices, although they are agents of secret intelligence in other countries undermining Romania. 2. Germany is using secret agents working undercover for development organizations in foreign countries. 3. Foreigners are not to be trusted, particularly those from Western Europe. 4. Romanians let their guard down and are tolerant towards enemies who come to destroy them from the inside.

BACKGROUND: Dominic Fritz is a German national who enrolled in the race for the Timișoara City Hall based on European treatises allowing any citizen of an EU Member State to apply for any public position in any other EU Member State. For that matter, Dominic Fritz was not the only foreign citizen who grabbed a large number of votes in the local election. Another famous case is that of Clotilde Armand, born in France, but settled in Romania (Armand has obtained Romanian citizenship), who won the race for the Bucharest District 1 City Hall.

Several parties and their affiliated voters have been promoting flag-waving rhetoric during the election campaign for the 2020 parliamentary and local elections, attacking their opponents on grounds that they aren’t “good Romanians”, and of actually advocating the interests of foreign and occult groups, to the detriment of Romania’s national interests. This type of nationalist rhetoric helped AUR become a parliamentary party, but was also played up by traditional parties like PSD.

Besides, 30 years after the Revolution, Romania still engenders a myth, most likely a legacy of communist ideology, which had also been used by far-right radicals in the inter-war period as well and the Conservatives before them, which insinuates that foreigners are enemies of the state per se and must be removed because their interests are hostile. The famous slogan “we won’t sell our country” that sprang up in the afterglow of the Revolution, the vehement rhetoric of the late PRM leader, Corneliu Vadim Tudor or PSD’s sovereigntist undertones in its public discourse, particularly during the time Liviu Dragnea was its strongman, are all fueling this type of narrative.

Furthermore, there is another widespread perception at society level that everything that goes wrong is the work of foreign citizens who come to Romania to do harm. This is the crux of the “citadel under siege” myth, a product of Russian culture that gained momentum during the siege of Stalingrad in the Second World War, commending stoic resistance against enemy invaders.

This type of local discourse diverts public attention away from acts of corruption. In brief, public attention is shifted from acts of corruption or political incompetence towards abstract, emotional matters. More often than not, it’s all just big talk, no evidence ever being provided to support the accusations.

Suspicions and hostility towards “foreigners”, more particularly towards the West, is commonplace in the Russian public sphere as well, underlying the narratives the Kremlin has been launching in recent years as part of its disinformation campaigns.

PURPOSE: These narratives are seeking to discredit political figures who don’t serve Russia’s interests, by means of false allegations, manipulation, blatant lies or through omission of facts. Overall, Russia would prefer Romania remained weak, consumed by corruption and internal conflicts that should hinder the consolidation of the state.

Romania is member state of EU and NATO with a major role in the eastern flank and the Black Sea region, where it clashes head-on with Russia’s interests. Therefore, Romania will be a constant target for disinformation attempts coming from Moscow, striking at its leaders and undermining people’s confidence in state institutions, the rule of law and its political class.

WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Sputnik picked up an article from a low-profile, obscure website, and presented it as “an investigation” into Timișoara Mayor, Dominic Fritz.

From the very beginning, Dominic Fritz never claimed to have obtained an MA degree in political sciences and public management from the German National Academy Foundation, which the authors of the “investigation” argue, but rather, as clearly stipulated in his public résumé, from the University of Konstanz in Germany.

In his résumé, Fritz lists a BA degree in Political and Administrative Sciences from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Therefore, the information is deliberately misleading.

The author of the “investigation” tries to link the fact that Dominic Fritz worked over 2009-20212 as an adviser for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) at the Department for Social Protection, to an older scandal in Pakistan. In 2012, three employees of the German Secret Service (BND) pretending to work for GIZ were exposed by the Pakistani authorities. In fact, GIZ had told Deutche Welle the three German nationals were merely posing as GIZ agents and the GIZ IDs they presented were fake.

“GIZ told Deutsche Welle the three were not employees of the agency and that the vehicle and business cards they were using - reportedly with the GIZ logo - had not been supplied by the development organization”, DW reports.

To make the connection between the BND and GIZ more plausible, the author refers to “a series of documents from the German Parliament”. This is in fact a query of Die Lienke MP Heike Hänsel. Die Lienke is a left-wing, Eurosceptic, pro-Russian and anti-immigration German party, a direct descendant of the former GDR’s communist party. Paradoxically, it upholds a great number of threads of far-right propaganda.

In its official response to Heike Hänsel and other fellow MPs who signed the petition, the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) states the following: “After a due and thorough examination by the Federal Government, the Bundestag has established that all diplomatically registered employees are not considered Employees of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH” (SEE page 11 in the document).

Accordingly, the three BND agents in Pakistan were not employed by GIZ.

Heike Hänsel is known for her anti-NATO and anti-US views. She has been a vocal advocate of the withdrawal of American and German troops from Afghanistan. In a 2017 interview for Sputnik, Hänsel criticized the consolidation of NATO’s eastern flank in Romania and Poland, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

In 2018, Heike Hänsel attended an anniversary meeting in Volgograd, Russia, marking 75 years since the Battle of Stalingrad in the Second World War.

“No picture, no document or report can speak of the suffering German Fascism has inflicted during the war, with the sole purpose of destroying countless cultures and nations. We should be grateful to the brave soldiers of the Red Army who liberated Europe and the whole world from Fascism. We are thankful to Volgograd for its warm welcome! Rest assured, you have friends in the German Bundestag who will always be willing to lend a helping hand and help consolidate friendly relations with Russia, free of sanctions or propaganda”, the vice-president of the Die Linke group in the German Bundestag, Heike Hänsel said at the time.

On her website, the German MP is a vocal critic of the West and the USA, particularly in the case of Julian Assange.

The Sputnik article also inserts an “anti-Semitic wedge” pointing to Fritz’s purported Jewish origins, since his second surname is Samuel, in order to further amplify the foreign origins of the Timișoara Mayor and fuel conspiracy theories targeting him.

GRAIN OF TRUTH: Dominic Fritz is also a German citizen who’s worked for several institutions of the German state, which are all mentioned in his résumé.

  • Publication / Media:
    sputnik.md, criticii.ro
  • Date of publication:
    27/02/2021
  • Target audience:
    The Romanian public
  • Amplification:
    ziuanews.ro, psnews.ro, corectnews.ro
  • Political affiliation:
    The Kremlin
  • Key narrative:
    The Romanians are electing into office foreigners who work as intelligence officers for hostile countries
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Article highlights:
  • Timișoara’s mayor, Dominic Fritz, is working for German intelligence, according to a so-called investigation distributed by Sputnik. The story bears all the hallmarks of fake news promoting the Russian narrative (which is similar to that of the Romanian national Communism) of the West as a hostile force.
  • NARRATIVES: 1. Romanians elect foreign citizens in public offices, although they are agents of secret intelligence in other countries undermining Romania. 2. Germany is using secret agents working undercover for development organizations in foreign countries. 3. Foreigners are not to be trusted, particularly those from Western Europe. 4. Romanians let their guard down and are tolerant towards enemies who come to destroy them from the inside.
  • PURPOSE: These narratives are seeking to discredit political figures who don’t serve Russia’s interests, by means of false allegations, manipulation, blatant lies or through omission of facts. Overall, Russia would prefer Romania remained weak, consumed by corruption and internal conflicts that should hinder the consolidation of the state.
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