What Actually Happened on April 22, 2026 # On Wednesday, April 22, 2026, an unusually dense sequence of security- and surveillance-policy events moved in parallel through Germany and Brussels:
Methodological note. This text is based on primary Bundestag documents (20/6621, 20/6702, WD 4-3000-008/23), the Last Generation 2022 transparency report (cited in the Bundestag WD opinion), the IRS Form 990 data of the Climate Emergency Fund via ProPublica and Instrumentl, and the websites of the organisations named. The text separates two layers that are systematically conflated in public discourse: (1) the scientific-political question of the climate crisis, and (2) the structural question of who, with what money, organised what kind of activism. The first layer is not negotiated here. The second is the subject.
Methodological note. This text is based on primary Bundestag documents (Drucksachen), the foundation register, the AAS website, and publicly available material on the founder’s Stasi-IM past. Where amounts are only secondary-sourced, this is marked. The foundation does work against right-wing extremism that addresses an unquestionable societal need. The point here is not to deny it its legitimacy — it is to show what the foundation systematically does not show when presenting itself as a “civil society” actor.
Methodological note. This text is based on primary Bundestag documents (Drucksachen), the foundations’ own websites, Correctiv’s governance page, and the program of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) 2023 Science Conference. Where amounts or positions are only secondary-sourced, this is marked. The point is not to deny Correctiv its legitimacy — it is to show what Correctiv systematically does not show when presenting itself as an “independent” investigative platform.
Methodological note. This text describes a temporal correlation and places it within a pattern already documented multiple times on this blog: investigative publication + temporally aligned political or civil-society follow-up (see Fernandes-Ulmen campaign parallel to the deepfake law, Network behind the deepfake law, HateAid-Campact funding pipeline). Strict proof of deliberate orchestration in any single case is hard to obtain; the pattern that any single case fits into is not. Sources are fully linked at the end.
Part 1 laid out the legal state of play: Three Sentences, Two Courts, No Final Judgment. What that piece could not do: describe the structure behind the investigation — the person, the awards, the money flows. These are not in the operative part of the Berlin ruling, but they explain why the investigation had such outsized impact.
Two months after the Berlin II Regional Court’s ruling against Correctiv, two versions of the same story are circulating. In one, a “painstakingly constructed edifice of lies” is collapsing, prizes must be returned, the democracy rallies were propaganda. In the other, Correctiv has won “a victory for press freedom” and the investigation stands.
This morning I posted on X pointing to Germany’s public parliamentary lobby register.
The content: HateAid submitted a four-page draft law to the Federal Ministry of Justice on February 6, 2026 — documented, publicly accessible, no interpretation required. A few weeks later, Justice Minister Hubig announced exactly this law in an interview with Der Spiegel.
September 2024: A film is shot. March 2026: A case becomes public. The film came first. # The film # On Monday, 23 March 2026, ZDF aired the film “Eine bessere Welt” (“A Better World”) at 8:15 p.m. Immediately afterwards, at 10:15 p.m., the documentary “Hate on the Net: A Better World” [1][2].
On March 13, 2026, Norbert Himmler was re-elected as ZDF director by the Television Council. No opposing candidate. 48 out of 53 votes. Calling it North Korean would be an exaggeration — but democratic it is not.
For about a week now, a question has been circulating on X, Instagram, Telegram, and Bluesky: Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dead? A viral video with a seemingly six-fingered hand, sudden social media silence, and a deleted tweet set the rumor mill spinning. What’s behind it?
When Elementary School Knowledge Becomes a Challenge # You would think that newsrooms funded with over 8.6 billion euros annually would at least know what European flags look like. You would think wrong.
