Weltwoche.de
Zollikon, 4. März 2025
Roger Köppel
Verleger und Chefredaktor
DIE WELTWOCHE
Zollikerstrasse 90
8702 Zollikon
(Schweiz)
Frau Elena Bernard
NewsGuard
[email protected]
Statement on the questions from NewsGuard
Dear Ms. Bernard
On February 28, 2025, you asked me by e-mail answer some of NewsGuard’s questions about the content of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche, which has been in existence for 92 years, which I do below as the responsible editor-in-chief and publisher. The following statements are largely not my original, original personal thoughts, but statements and texts drawn from existing sources, documents and presentations. I would also like to point out that, in addition to the articles you have criticized, other articles have appeared in Weltwoche on the subject in question that present a completely different view. Perhaps you will allow me to make a few brief preliminary remarks in this regard.
Preliminary remarks
Weltwoche has been covering world affairs for ninety years. Founded by two journalists from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) on a train journey through France, the weekly focuses on so-called unconventional journalism. This means that Weltwoche does not follow any political line, dogma or editorial consensus, but gives its authors the freedom to say what they want to say, or more precisely: what they have to say.
With this approach, the newspaper has always fallen between all categories and pigeonholes. For some it was too left-wing, for others too right-wing. A concept paper from 1994 stated that Weltwoche kept its distance from fashions and the zeitgeist. It was not aimed at a “supponized general reader” statistically determined by market research. Instead, it always tries to write about what people are hopefully interested in.
None of this self-image has lost its relevance. The idea that journalists should impose a certain world view on readers or mentor them in their thinking is absurd. But unfortunately it is an all too common practice today. The moralizing lecture tone, devoid of humour and self-doubt, has become the basic chord of many reports.
Weltwoche has a mandate to take countermeasures. It is repeatedly criticized for this. Hopefully so too. The majority don’t like contradiction so much, but the counterpoint is important in democracy. If everyone runs in the same direction, it becomes dangerous. One-sided debates produce one-sided decisions. It is a warning sign that during the coronavirus pandemic, many people in Switzerland no longer dared to speak their minds.
Has the situation improved dramatically since then? Quite the opposite. When it came to Ukraine, the media clumped together with politicians to form an opinion block, a prickly phalanx. The simplicity was unbearable, and anyone who expressed even the slightest doubt about the truths being spread was labeled a henchman of evil. Again and again, Weltwoche had to act as a public defender. But why only them?
Journalists fail to do their job when they become prompters of the majority, followers of the powerful. The longer I think about it, the more urgent the tried and tested Weltwoche postulate of diversity seems to me. There is always another point of view, and instead of approaching what initially seems alien to us with a robotic arrogance, the good old virtue of curiosity, of wanting to understand, should come into play – and the desire to contradict.
And there is something else that is missing out: encouragement. Our time is drowning in negativity, world-weariness and whining. Until recently, the Greens were highly praised. Now they are being stomped into the ground just as primitively and full of malice. They pushed the poor Ukrainian President Selensky to become the new patron saint of the West. Now they are dropping the former actor, who must have been overconfident in his praise, like a rotten potato. That is cynical.
No, journalists can’t save the world either. But they can at least try to calm the waves of madness that have been surging for ages. I hope that Weltwoche will continue to live up to its credo that you should feel better after reading it than before – and, what’s more, informed. Where everyone criticizes, you have to praise. But where everyone praises, you can criticize. And the real thing is always the whole.
Weltwoche is the constant attempt to absolve itself of everything, to question everything, to believe in nothing except the beneficial power of conversation, speech and counter-speech. This, it seems to me, is also the basis of Switzerland, which in many ways can be just as unconventional and contradictory, as pleasingly recalcitrant as Weltwoche, this traditional Swiss product that can only thrive in a Switzerland that is still the best organized anarchy in the West.[1]
Weltwoche has always been convinced that democracies are superior to dictatorships because they promote open societies and the free flow of information. Democracy is an open-ended process of discussion and decision-making. It is not the intelligence and decisiveness of an individual, however brilliant he may be, that is at the center. Democracy relies on the swarm intelligence of the many, on the anarchic diversity of the population.
Democracies become despotisms when the authorities or self-appointed bodies begin to base their decisions on alleged “truths”, on “unquestionable” certainties. The tendency of our politicians, too, to take leave of the democratic process of speech and counter-speech by invoking “indisputable”, “scientific” truths is dangerous. And it is clearly dictatorial.
In a democracy, majority rules before truth. No one, not even a Nobel Prize winner, should be allowed to rule. Democracy is the form of government in which citizens distrust their rulers. It is the form of government of contradiction. The citizens are the boss and never the politicians. Or the professors. Or the judges. Or self-appointed “ministries of truth”. If the authorities make it difficult for the people to say no, democracy is in danger.
Majority before truth means in other words: Anyone who claims to possess the truth is deceiving. Because the truth is never a final result, it is an eternal search, a never-ending process of trial and error, and democracy is the only known form of government to date that institutionally guarantees this process of constantly finding the truth. If the process suffers, the truth suffers, democracy suffers.[2]
Maidan Revolution
Your accusation: the article describes the Maidan revolution as a “coup initiated by the USA”. You consider this to be misleading, as according to international media reports, the revolution shows all the characteristics of a popular uprising, not a coup instigated from outside.
Your objections do not stand up to the known facts. In this regard, I recommend the excellent speech by Jeffrey D. Sachs, former professor at Columbia University in New York, to the European Parliament on February 19, 2025, entitled “The Geopolitics of Peace”. After the Maidan, Sachs was asked by the new government to come to Kiev, he was shown around the Maidan and experienced many things first-hand. The US idea since the 1990s had been that Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia would all be part of NATO, which would strip Russia of any international status by blockading the Black Sea and essentially neutralizing Russia as little more than a local power.
Jeffrey D. Sachs says verbatim: “In 2014, the US was actively working to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych. Everyone knows about the phone call intercepted by my colleague at Columbia University, Victoria Nuland, and US Ambassador Peter Pyatt. There can be no better proof. The Russians intercepted her call and posted it on the Internet. Listen to this.[3] It’s fascinating. It got them all promoted in the Biden administration. That’s the job. When the Maidan happened, I got a call shortly afterward. ‘Professor Sachs, the new Ukrainian prime minister wants to see you to talk about the economic crisis.’ So I flew to Kiev and was given a tour of the Maidan. I was told how the US paid the money for all the people around the Maidan, the ‘spontaneous’ revolution of dignity . Ladies and gentlemen, please, how did all this Ukrainian media suddenly come about at the time of the Maidan? Where did all this organization come from? Where did all these buses come from? Where did all these people come from? Is this a joke? This is an organized action. And it’s not a secret, except maybe to the citizens of Europe and the United States. Everyone else understands it very clearly.”[4]
According to Ivan Katchanovski, Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa and a native of Ukraine, there is extensive evidence that oligarchic and far-right elements of the opposition were responsible for the murders of demonstrators on the Kiev Maidan. Nevertheless, they made false accusations against the government and its police and security forces. This enabled them to take power. Western governments supported this undemocratic overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian government. The majority of the wounded Maidan protesters testified at the trial about the massacre that they had been shot at by snipers from the “Ukraina” hotel and other buildings occupied by the Maidan opposition alliance, not by security forces. Synchronized videos show that for most of those killed, the sequence and angle of the shots did not match the shots fired by the police.
There was no evidence of an order to shoot by Yanukovych or one of his ministers. On the other hand, 14 members of the anti-government sniper units admitted that they themselves or other marksmen had shot police officers or demonstrators – on the orders of leaders of the opposition movement. Several Maidan leaders were themselves involved in the killings.[5]
It is undisputed that American and European politicians, foundations, political parties and party-affiliated foundations as well as state-affiliated NGOs and other organizations supported certain groups in Ukraine years before the Maidan revolution of 2013/14. Between 1991 and 2014, the US supported Ukraine with five billion dollars, most of which was provided through USAID. According to the deputy director of USAID, this was used to support civil society and non-governmental organizations.[6]
On December 14, 2013, US Senator John McCain spoke at the Maidan in Kiev and supported the demands of the opposition parties in his speech.[7] US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland also gave a speech on the Maidan during the demonstrations.[8]
On February 20, 2014, US President Barack Obama imposed an entry ban on 20 cabinet members and officials of Ukraine – without naming names – on the accusation of human rights violations in connection with the political repression in Ukraine. Obama declared that all those in the “chain of command” who had ordered the storming of the protest camp on Kiev’s Independence Square were affected. A diplomat clarified on behalf of the US government that the entry bans were directed against police officers and not military personnel, as the military had not been involved in the unrest. [9]
“Also” the then US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Victoria Nuland, confirmed that the US had already invested five billion dollars in the “westward orientation” of the country before 2014. This was a huge sum for one of the poorest countries in Europe. It is even very likely that the sums involved were much higher and included money from other Western states, their secret services and private foundations. Western politicians – including the then German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP) – also repeatedly joined the demonstrators on Kiev’s Maidan Square, some of whom were armed, and pledged their support; an almost unique occurrence that no Western country would accept for itself. In a wiretapped conversation between Nuland and the then US ambassador in Kiev, they even discussed which particularly US-friendly politician should be appointed Ukrainian prime minister after a successful overthrow. [10]
On February 22, 2014, the legitimate government, which had been balancing between Russia and the EU, was overthrown with the support of US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who brought the pro-American Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to power. However, the ousted President Viktor Yanukovych had been democratically elected in elections confirmed by the EU and had even signed an agreement with ministers from France, Germany and Poland to hold early elections two days before his ousting.[11]
As Vitali Klitschko’s opposition party, UDAR also had contact with the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The Adenauer Foundation considered it its task to support opposition members and therefore came into conflict with the Ukrainian government and secret service at the time. [12]
Benjamin Abelow, US historian and nuclear weapons policy expert, writes about the anti-government protests on the Maidan: “In late 2013 and early 2014, anti-government protests took place on Kyiv’s Maidan. These US-backed protests were undermined by violent provocateurs. The violence finally culminated in a coup d’état. In this, armed, far-right Ukrainian ultra-nationalists took over government buildings and forced the democratically elected pro-Russian president to flee abroad.[13]
John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, described the consequences as follows: “The new government in Kiev was thoroughly pro-Western and anti-Russian, and it included four high-ranking members who could rightly be described as neo-fascists.
could rightly be described as neo-fascists.”[14]
The US played a role in these events, even if the full extent of its involvement and the question of whether it directly fomented the violence may never be fully clarified publicly. What is certain, as mentioned above, is that the US has poured five billion US dollars into pro-Western organizations in Ukraine since 1991 and that it was already searching behind the scenes for a successor to the incumbent president a month before the coup. The latter became known when a telephone conversation between the US Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was intercepted,
Geoffrey Pyatt, was intercepted or leaked and subsequently published online. In the course of the conversation, Nuland used a crude expression in reference to the EU (“Fuck the EU”), which led to tensions between Washington and European capitals.[15]
Through the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., 3.5 million dollars were channeled to almost 60 different institutions throughout Ukraine in 2012.[16] In an exclusive interview with CNN on January 27, 2015, conducted by Fareed Zakaria, US President Barack Obama declared that he had negotiated a deal for a transition of power.[17] In February, Victoria Nuland met with both Tyahnybok and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was later appointed as Ukraine’s new interim prime minister. In the telephone conversation with Ambassador Pyatt, which was made public by Russia on February 4, 2014, Nuland stated that she preferred Yatsenyuk to Klitschko. [18]
Eastern European historian Andreas Kappeler states: “It is true that foreign-funded non-governmental organizations in Ukraine, as in many other countries, actively supported the development of a civil society.[19] And the former German SPD politician Klaus von Dohnanyi says of the 2014 revolution that it is “of course undisputed that the USA, as so often, also had a hand in this ‘regime change’[20]
CO2 as the main driver of climate change
https://weltwoche.de/story/die-klimareligion-ist-am-ende
Your accusation: The article states that CO2 has no relevant influence on the climate. You classify this as “misleading based on the scientific evidence that has identified CO2 as the main driver of man-made climate change”.
As a critical medium, Weltwoche reserves the right to question and criticize the new alliance between science and power – as in the Covid pandemic, for example, but also in the climate issue – which today is to a certain extent the old alliance between the crown and the church. In the past, it was called “blasphemy” if subjects questioned the wisdom of monarchs. Today, you are a “denier” or an “enemy of science”, i.e. a criminal of conviction or a fool, if you dare to exercise your basic democratic right to object.
The abuse of power from above has been exacerbated by climate alarmism at universities. Since then, prominent professors have acted like prophets, imperiously proclaiming the absolute truth. Corona then brought the epidemic-driven state of emergency, the far-reaching suspension of our democracy under the sign of daily death toll tables, which were intended to numb any dissent at the outset.
Majority before truth means in other words: Whoever claims to possess the truth is deceiving. Because the truth is never a final result, it is an eternal search, a never-ending process of trial and error, and democracy is the only known form of government to date that institutionally guarantees this process of constantly finding the truth. If the process suffers, the truth suffers, democracy suffers.
In response to the accusation that CO2 (i.e. man-made CO2) has no relevant influence on the climate, geoscientist Sebastian Lüning has a historical perspective: In the Middle Ages, it was similarly warm in Switzerland and other parts of Central Europe as it is today. The so-called Medieval Warm Period is scientifically well documented in the region: Between 800 and 1300 AD, many Alpine glaciers shrank dramatically and in some cases were even shorter than today. The tree line shifted upwards. The permafrost thawed in high alpine regions, which are still firmly in the grip of the ice today. The warm temperatures are also clearly documented by tree rings, pollen, mosquito fossils and other geological reconstruction methods.
It had long been assumed that the Medieval Warm Period was a regional, North Atlantic phenomenon. However, this has not been confirmed, as the warm phase also occurred in many other regions of the world, for example on the Antarctic Peninsula, in the Andes, in North America, in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean, in East Africa, China and New Zealand.
The medieval warmth was then followed by a sudden drop in global temperatures. During the Little Ice Age, from 1450 to 1850, the climate cooled to the coldest temperature level in the last ten thousand years. This all happened without the influence of man-made CO2 emissions.
In the summary of the new IPCC report, however, a controversial temperature curve is prominently displayed right at the beginning, giving the impression that there has only been minimal pre-industrial climate change over the last two millennia. With the onset of industrialization around 1850, the curve then rockets upwards by more than one degree. This method of presentation is also known as the “field hockey stick”: The climatically supposedly uneventful pre-industrial period forms the straight shaft, and at its end comes the trowel of the field hockey stick with the rapid modern warming. The 3rd Assessment Report on the State of the Climate in 2001 already contained a similar field hockey stick pattern, which was intended to fool politicians into believing that today’s warming was unprecedented and therefore entirely man-made. In the last two decades, however, paleoclimatology has made great progress and data has been diligently collected. From this, more realistic temperature trends were created, with a pronounced Medieval Warm Period and a later Little Ice Age.
This makes the relapse into the old field hockey stick days all the more bitter. How could this happen? What were the possible motives for the renewed distortion of climate history? The questionable new hockey stick temperature curve comes from an international group of palaeoclimatologists whose coordination office is based at the University of Bern. Climate scientist Thomas Stocker, who has contributed to the IPCC reports since 1998, also teaches and researches at this university. Stocker was co-author of the summary for politicians of the 3rd IPCC climate status report, in which the field hockey stick played a central role. A good twenty years later, the resurfaced field hockey stick now comes from Stocker’s university, where he heads the Department of Climate and Environmental Physics. Five of the nineteen authors of the articles on the new field hockey stick curve come from Bern.
Based on tree rings, specialists were able to prove that summer temperatures had already reached today’s level several times in the pre-industrial past. The work of Ulf Büntgen from the ETH research institute WSL and colleagues was not included in the IPCC report, although it was published in good time before the editorial deadline.
The IPCC conceals from the public the fact that many experts and reviewers consider the curve to be highly problematic. Both IPCC authors and review editors are appointed by a politically elected IPCC board. The selection of the researchers involved in the IPCC report therefore already cements a direction of thought in terms of content that can hardly be changed later. The laws of leverage apply: Whoever is at the longer end gets their way.
What falls by the wayside is scientific sustainability. After all, it is only a matter of time before critical climate scientists systematically work through and address the inconsistencies in the pre-filtered IPCC report. The incident shows how political tactics undermine the scientific integrity of the IPCC and shake the trust placed in the institution.[21]
In climate research, therefore, there are certainly alternative explanations for climate change, critical analyses of climate models, dissenting expert opinions, possible problems with data and forecasts and the determining influence of political and economic interests. The following statements are also based on verifiable scientific sources.
One alternative climate driver that should be taken seriously is solar activity. The sun goes through known cycles as well as longer-term fluctuations in its radiation intensity. Some studies are investigating the extent to which these solar cycles could influence the Earth’s climate. For example, an international team of researchers showed evidence that the 11-year rhythm of the sun influences certain regional climate patterns.[22] The previously discussed historical climate fluctuations such as the Little Ice Age (approx. 15th-19th century) are also partly associated with phases of low solar activity (e.. the Maunder Minimum).
The sun is likely to have played a greater role in the warming of the 20th century than assumed by the IPCC consensus. Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem quantified the solar influence in a 2008 study. He used the oceans as a “calorimeter” and estimated the solar climate effect over the 11-year cycle at 1.0-1.5 W/m², which would be around 5-7 times stronger than the effect of the pure radiation change from the sun. Shaviv and others conclude that an amplification mechanism must exist – possibly via cloud formation – that amplifies small changes in solar activity in a climatically effective way. Indeed, geological data show correlations between past solar activity changes and climate fluctuations. For example, oxygen isotopes in dripstones (as a climate archive) correlate with the production rate of cosmogenic carbon-14, an indicator of solar activity. Such findings indicate a certain connection between solar cycles and the Earth’s climate.
Researchers are also currently discussing the possible occurrence of a “Grand Solar Minimum” in this century. Using a solar model, physicist Valentina Zharkova from Northumbria University predicted that the sun could enter a phase of significantly reduced activity between around 2020 and 2050 – comparable to the Maunder Minimum. According to their study, such a modern solar could temporarily lower the global average temperature by up to 1.0 °C. This would temporarily dampen warming. In fact, observations since 2019 have already shown unusually few sunspots, which is seen as an indication that the sun is beginning to weaken.
Another hypothesis is that cosmic rays (high-energy particles from space) could indirectly influence the climate. The idea, prominently put forward by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark, is that cosmic rays promote the formation of aerosols, which serve as condensation nuclei for clouds, by ionizing the atmosphere. More cosmic rays therefore promote more cloud formation (especially deep, dense clouds), which would lead to cooling, while an active sun with a strong solar magnetic field shields the cosmic rays, allowing fewer clouds to form and thus promoting warming. Experimental tests of this hypothesis have been carried out, for example in the CERN CLOUD series of experiments. Initial results (2006) indeed showed that stronger ionization led to increased formation of small aerosol particles (~3 nm). Svensmark and colleagues refer to studies that have found statistical correlations between cosmic ray fluctuations and global cloud cover. In addition, there are studies that establish correlations between cosmic ray intensity (due to the position of the solar system in the galaxy) and Earth climate indicators over geological periods (>10^6 years). These are seen as indications that cosmic influences could be part of the Earth’s climate evolution.
In addition to the sun and the cosmos, internal, natural climate fluctuations are also cited as an explanation. The Earth system naturally exhibits various oscillations and climate cycles that occur independently of humans. Examples are the El Niño/La Niña phenomena, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). These can influence the climate regionally and globally for years to decades. Some climate scientists, including Judith Curry, argue that a significant part of the observed warming could be attributed to such multidecadal natural fluctuations, which are not fully captured in current climate models.[23] For example, there was a warming phase in the early 20th century (ca. 1910-1940), long before the massive increase in CO2 after 1950. Studies suggest that this early warming was largely natural in origin – for example, due to a combination of high solar activity and low volcanic activity, amplified by internal variability in the ocean-atmosphere system.[24]
Climate models are key tools for estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate. However, the accusation that such models are oversensitive to greenhouse gases and therefore project more warming than actually occurs must be taken seriously. Various studies have shown that many models run “too warm” compared to reality. One example is an analysis by Fyfe et al. (2013) in Nature, which found that most climate models calculated higher warming trends for the period 1998-2012 than were actually measured in observed temperature series (HadCRUT4).[25] Similarly, an evaluation found that the model projections for 1998-2014 showed about 2.2 times as much warming as was measured. In other words, the models have tended to overestimate the warming of recent decades.
Another point of criticism concerns the accuracy with which complex processes in the climate system are modeled. Clouds, aerosols and ocean currents are particularly difficult to model. Even the IPCC admits: “The simulation of clouds in climate models remains challenging. With a very high degree of certainty, uncertainties in cloud processes explain a large part of the range in the modeled climate sensitivities.”[26] This wide range of uncertainty can be interpreted to mean that scenarios with low warming cannot be ruled out.
Critical experts also criticize the fact that models are often adjusted to the past (e.g. by making assumptions about aerosol effects) in order to reproduce historical warming. US atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, for example, said that many models assume a strong cooling effect from industrial aerosols to explain the moderate warming of the 20th century – implying that without this assumption, the models would have shown too much CO2-induced warming.[27] If these aerosol assumptions are wrong or exaggerated, the CO2 effect would be overestimated.
The climate models stipulated as scientific “consensus” suffer from three main problems: (1) possible overestimation of CO2 climate sensitivity (lack of negative feedbacks, too strong positive feedbacks), (2) inadequate representation of natural variability and complex processes (especially clouds), and (3) subsequent adjustment of models to observations, which makes the predictive quality questionable. These studies give critics strong arguments to support the claim that CO2 could be overestimated as the sole main driver in models.[28]
There are quite a number of serious scientists and experts who publicly express dissenting opinions. Here are some well-known personalities and their core arguments:
Richard S. Lindzen – emeritus atmospheric physicist at MIT. Lindzen does not doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but he is convinced that the climate reacts less sensitively to it than assumed in current models. He points to possible stabilizing feedbacks (e.. the iris hypothesis) and criticizes a “groupthink” effect in climate science. In publications, Lindzen argues that the observed warming can also be explained with a lower sensitivity if the uncertainties are taken into account.[29]
Judith Curry – climate scientist (formerly Georgia Institute of Technology). She particularly emphasizes the uncertainty in climate forecasts and the role of natural variability. Curry has published papers on multi-decadal climate variability (e.. the “Atlantic-Pacific Oscillation”) and argues that these natural cycles may account for a larger proportion of short-term trends than the IPCC acknowledges. She criticizes that the climate system is too complex to predict accurately with current models and calls for more openness in the debate instead of labeling uncomfortable questions as “climate denial”.[30] According to Curry, she resigned from her university professorship because she is critical of the politically charged nature of climate research.
Nir Shaviv – astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is of the opinion that a significant part of the warming can be explained by the sun and cosmic influences. Shaviv has published studies on the climate impact of galactic cosmic rays and solar amplification (see above). In an often-cited paper, he estimates that up to ~50% of the warming in the 20th century could be due to indirect solar effects (increased cloud formation during low solar activity). This would put the sun (together with cosmic rays) almost on a par with the CO2 effect. However, Shaviv also emphasizes the uncertainties and calls for further research into the sun-climate link before drawing definite conclusions.
Henrik Svensmark – physicist at the Danish National Space Institute. He is the main proponent of the aforementioned cosmic ray-cloud hypothesis. Svensmark has published several papers pointing to correlations between the arrival of galactic radiation and changes in cloud cover or temperature. He also carried out cloud chamber experiments to recreate the effect. He concludes that cosmic rays are an important climate factor and that climate models overlook this natural mechanism.
S. Fred Singer (†2019) – atmospheric physicist and one of the earliest critics of the CO2 hypothesis. Since the , Singer argued that the observed warming was not unusual in the context of natural climate variations. In collaboration with Dennis Avery, he propagated the theory of a ~1500-year climate cycle (Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle), which produces warm and cold phases independently of humans.[31] He was co-author of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report, a counter-draft to the IPCC report, which was published in 2008 and emphasized natural climate factors.
Willie Soon – astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center. Soon conducts research on the sun and has found in scientific articles that variations in solar radiation could explain much of the recent warming. A paper by Soon and colleagues (2003) linked climate data to the cycles of various celestial bodies (sun, moon, planets).
There are other well-known names – such as Roy Spencer and John Christy (climatologists, University of Alabama) – who are primarily known for their analysis of satellite data. In the 1990s, they initially found less warming in the troposphere than ground data showed.
It is important to note that these expert opinions generally do not deny that there is a greenhouse effect or that CO2 is fundamentally warming. Rather, the focus is on the degree of human influence. Most of these people argue that natural factors are stronger and uncertainties greater than those presented by the IPCC. Their publications should be taken seriously and provide a basis for reconsidering political demands regarding the urgency of reducing emissions.
The prevailing climate theory takes too little account of the inaccuracies and uncertainties in the climate data and the difficulties with measurement methods. The observed warming could be less or more uncertain than is generally reported, which would call into question the significance of the CO2 effect.
The measurement of a global temperature rise of around 1°C since the pre-industrial age is based on the combination of thousands of measurement series with different measuring instruments and methods. Measurement errors and data gaps could make this increase statistically inconclusive. Researcher Patrick Frank, for example, has argued that the uncertainty of the measured global average temperature is greater than assumed. In an analysis, he took into account systematic errors of weather stations and came to the conclusion that the increase of ~0.8°C since 1850 has a margin of uncertainty of ±0.98°C.[32] In other words, the error bars would be larger than the signal, making it impossible to say with a high degree of certainty whether significant warming has occurred at all.[33] If this were true, the evidence of warming trends would be statistically weaker than official climate reports suggest.
Another problem is the urban heat island effect (UHI). The expansion of cities and infrastructure close to measuring stations is likely to lead to an artificial heat bias. Scientific papers have been published (e.g. by McKitrick and Michaels) suggesting that socio-economic factors and urban influences correlate with the patterns of measured warming. If part of the trend were indeed caused by UHI or instrument changes, this would put the man-made CO2 contribution into perspective.
The uncertainties in future forecasts are a significant problem. This uncertainty has various sources: Uncertainty about future emissions, about climatic feedbacks and about natural variability. Although climate models are based on physics, they still contain many parameters that are not precisely known – e.. the behavior of clouds or aerosols (see above). Even small changes in assumptions can mean big differences in the long term. Earlier predictions have been anything but accurate. For example, there were projections from the that predicted significantly more warming for 2020 than is now being measured. These deviations are an indication that climate models are all too unreliable to predict exact time sequences.
There is also a lack of knowledge about certain climate processes. For example, the feedbacks through clouds and water vapor are complex: warming leads to more water vapor (the strongest greenhouse gas) and therefore to further warming, but it could also change the cloud distribution, which can have both a cooling and a warming effect. Scientific uncertainties remain here, leading to a range of climate sensitivity estimates.[34]
Even critical scientists acknowledge that the temperature has risen, but they emphasize that measurement uncertainties and data processing decisions influence the exact value and interpretation. The uncertainties in climate forecasts call for political restraint: if the models are uncertain, no hasty, drastic measures to reduce prosperity should be taken and highly industrialized countries should be de-industrialized to a certain extent.
It goes without saying that the debate on climate change is not a purely scientific one, but is strongly influenced by political and economic interests. This applies to both sides – those who warn of the consequences of global warming and those who consider human influence to be less decisive. Experts who argue against man-made CO2 as the main cause of global warming often point out that multi-billion dollar climate policy programs and research funding promote a “climate alarm” narrative.
In any case, established climate research is not free from conflicts of interest. Climate researchers have an incentive to emphasize the dangers of climate change in order to obtain research funding and public attention. In addition, IPCC reports are approved by governments, which that political influences also have an impact here.
In summary, there are a large number of studies and opinions that cite alternative causes for global warming or critically question the prevailing models and data evaluations. These range from solar-astronomical explanations (solar cycles, cosmic radiation) and references to natural climate cycles to methodological criticism of climate models and measurement series. The aforementioned points are the subject of serious scientific debate. It is important to note that science is an ongoing process: in the past, skeptical hypotheses have also led to methods being improved and gaps in understanding being closed (e.. better satellite data or more thorough uncertainty analyses in models. [35]
Ultimately, the debate must be based on sound scientific arguments. The positions presented here that deviate from the mainstream – as also published by Weltwoche – contribute to the completeness of the debate by shedding light on blind spots. They correspond to what the British-Austrian philosopher Karl Raimund Popper called falsification, the attempt to repeatedly challenge existing hypotheses with other and better hypotheses. Reasoned dissent, not consensus, is the way of science and journalism.
Socialist Hitler
https://weltwoche.de/daily/sozialist-hitler
Their criticism: the article explains why Hitler was a socialist. However, it ignores the fact that Hitler persecuted socialists and that, according to historians, his political ideology was very different from socialist ideas. You therefore classify the article as misleading.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao and virtually all communist tyrant rulers persecuted, imprisoned and killed people who were undoubtedly avowed communists. Would anyone draw the conclusion from this – as with the example of Adolf Hitler – that Lenin, Stalin and Mao could not have been communists because they persecuted communists? The fact that one political group persecutes and fights the other does not mean that the ideological roots cannot be identical. Hitler allied himself with Stalin only to fall out with him again. The Stalinists, for their part, persecuted the Trotskyists, and the National Socialists shot numerous SA members in the “Röhm Putsch” of 1934 as “dissenters” in their own party organization.
The article you criticize uses numerous quotes and examples to show how much Adolf Hitler felt like a socialist. If you deny this fact, you are going against the findings of recent totalitarianism research by personalities such as the Nobel Prize winners Friedrich August von Hayek and Karl R. Popper or by Hannah Arendt, Robert Röpke, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Dietrich Bracher etc
According to their findings, National Socialism, fascism and socialism have the same ideological roots that form the cause of totalitarianism, namely unlimited state power (statism), overemphasis on the community (collectivism) and disregard for the freedom of the individual (anti-individualism, anti-liberalism).[36]
However, alleged anti-fascism has always served the socialist regimes as a myth, a means of struggle and legitimization. The rulers of the GDR removed the word “National Socialism” from their vocabulary, as the term “socialism” disturbed them, and insulted almost all opponents of their system as “fascists”. The rejection of democracy under the guise of “anti-fascism” led totalitarian socialists to open terrorism and political murder in the 1970s, particularly in Germany (Red Army Faction) and Italy (Red Brigades).
Nevertheless, all too many people still act as if there was only one form of totalitarian rule in the 20th century. The brown totalitarianism, which has fortunately long since come to an end, and the still unfinished red variety are measured with highly unequal yardsticks. In our country, pancakes are only ever baked on one side, which is why they smell so burnt – according to Wilhelm Röpke.[37]
Ludwig von Mises – a leading thinker of the liberal society – stated as early as 1932: “Both – Marxism and National Socialism – agree in their opposition to liberalism and in their rejection of the capitalist social order. Both strive for a socialist social order.”[38] Wilhelm Röpke wrote in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1937: “The anti-fascism of the communists and the anti-communism of the fascists – basically, this is a family dispute within the totalitarian sector of the world.”[39] In his 1944 work “The Road to Serfdom”, Friedrich August von Hayek delivered an extremely well-founded reckoning with the “right-wing” and “left-wing” dictatorships. Hayek showed that only a liberal order can lead to a society of free and prosperous people.[40] At almost the same time, the philosopher Sir Karl R. Popper exposed both the National Socialists and the socialists as enemies of the “open society”.[41]
The sociologist and political scientist Hannah Arendt aptly captured the common ideological foundations of National Socialism and socialism with the term “totalitarianism”.[42] In 1982, the German historian Karl Dietrich Bracher described the similarities between the two great seductive movements of the 20th century.[43] The French intellectual André Glucksmann was a harsh critic of the common features of totalitarian systems of all stripes.[44] In France, the essential affinity and complicity of red and brown totalitarianism were explored and presented in an exemplary manner by François Furet in 1995 in his work “The End of an Illusion”[45] and by Stéfane Courtois in 1997 in a “Black Book of Communism”[46] . The philosopher Jean-François Revel summarized the reason for the angry reactions to the “Black Book of Communism” as follows: “It is not pleasant to have to admit that for almost a century we have supported the type of political regime that is basically identical to the one we fought against as the embodiment of evil (Nazism). The pain of this confession is feared by the entire left.”[47] In 2000, Thierry Wolton dealt with “Red-Brown, the pact against democracy from 1939 to the present day”.[48] In 2002, Hans Wilhelm Vahlefeld wrote about “Germany’s totalitarian tradition”, namely “National Socialism and SED socialism as political religions”.[49]
Numerous articles in the Berner Tagwacht, the official organ of the Swiss SP, testify to the extent to which even the Socialists and Social Democrats in neutral Switzerland were impressed by Hitler’s socialism. The fact that Hitler and Mussolini also fought the Socialists and Social Democrats does not exclude the possibility that important voices in the Swiss SP were sympathetic, even admiring, of the ideological foundations of the brown and black dictatorship. The Swiss SP certainly had feelings of fascination towards the causes of lack of freedom, persecution and terror – state omnipotence, collectivism and anti-capitalism. [50]
Clear contempt for democracy and thus a blatant totalitarian attitude is expressed in many articles in the Berner Tagwacht. The following statement from 1940 demonstrates the clear sympathy with which the official publication of the SP Switzerland viewed European dictatorships, the extent to which it paid homage to collectivism and the extent to which it advocated the adaptation of Switzerland: “The working people of Switzerland today are in any case gaining more and more understanding for the example of authoritarian states to subordinate the economy and wealth, knowledge and skills to the people as a whole […]. That would be an adaptation that we could all accept and with which we would also be able to survive in the new Europe.”[51] In the summer of 1940, the Berner Tagwacht wrote about the Nazi state: “It is not a communist or socialist state, but it is winning with the motto of National Socialism […]. We see a world in upheaval on all sides; where war or revolution does not bring it, capitalist society sees itself forced to correct itself – to regulate its white waters and swamp pools.”[52]
An editorial on “The German economic system” in the official publication of the SP Switzerland was adorned with the following confessional phrases: “The new economic order, which is in the making here, can only attain its full significance in the post-war period. It confronts the old order, which took its form in the last century and which has been recognized as outdated not only in Germany.” There, money “only has purchasing power within the framework of the quantity of goods granted to the owner of the money”. “As a result” – the SP newspaper rejoiced – “the concept of property has also changed in National Socialist Germany. [53]
The Berner Tagwacht praised the Third Reich with conspicuous ideological solidarity: “With the replacement of the old liberal economic order by conscious state control, a change in fundamental economic policy views is also taking place. […] A capital-poor country like Germany is no longer dependent on going abroad and borrowing foreign capital. In order to marry German labor with German natural resources, one no longer needs the blessings of the English banker. But that means breaking the capital prejudice. Germany has not only given the whole world the gift of breaking the bondage of interest, but also the bondage of capital in general. Of course, the German technique of capital replacement through internal credit expansion is also a great art, the secrets of which have not yet been fully revealed abroad.”[54]
At the beginning of 1941, the official organ of the SP Switzerland hailed the revolutionary character of the totalitarian regimes in Germany and Italy: “The revolution of 1918 has come to a standstill, has been beaten back. In a different sense, fascism and National Socialism have set things rolling again. Both movements have grown beyond their initial aims, have outgrown them. Once reactionary, they are now the carriers of revolutions. Only what socialism has always said is true: the social idea never dies and never the working class as a revolutionary mass factor.”[55]
“Expressions of opinion in the spirit of the SVP and AfD”
Allegation: In the following articles, it was noticed that they contain opinions in favor of parties such as the SVP and AfD without being marked as commentary and without Wochenblick [sic!] disclosing a corresponding perspective:
https://weltwoche.de/daily/nach-rekorderfolg-der-rechten-opposition-ard-ruft-normalisierung-der-afd-aus-jetzt-muessen-den-worten-taten-folgen/ (“So it’s high time that ARD and Co. ‘normalized’ their reporting on the AfD and finally fulfilled their mandate to report in a balanced and factual manner, paid for with billions of euros from citizens’ wallets. It is not the AfD that is abnormal, it is its treatment by the media.”
https://weltwoche.ch/daily/ukraine-krieg-dass-russland-und-amerika-in-riad-verhandeln-ist-ein-lobenswerter-anfang-dass-die-schweiz-dabei-ueberhaupt-keine-rolle-spielt-ist-selbstverschuldet-und-sehr-bitter/ (“Anyone who took a differentiated view of the Ukraine war quickly became a Putin apologist. Anyone who questioned the corona measures at the time was a conspiracy theorist, anyone who criticized the energy transition was a climate denier, anyone who protested against the large influx of asylum seekers was a racist. It’s just stupid that the critics – like the SVP in Switzerland – are proven right in the end.”)
https://weltwoche.ch/story/unsichere-welt-sichere-schweiz/ (“The EU urgently needs money, which is why it needs Switzerland as a new net payer. The Eurocrats are planning a hostile takeover of the Swiss Confederation through a package of “institutional treaties”. They would bring foreign law, foreign judges and foreign sanctions into the country, more bureaucracy and poverty, less freedom and prosperity. Among the parties, only the SVP defies subjugation.”)
My statement on this is as follows: The references to the AfD and SVP parties in various political contexts, which have been criticized here, are, without exception, verifiable statements that correspond to the facts. As far as the demand for a strict separation of facts and opinions is concerned, it should be noted: Like all privately published newspapers and magazines in the German-speaking world that I know of, Weltwoche does not make a strict distinction between news and commentary or facts and opinions in its articles. There is no such separation at Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt or Tageszeitung (taz). And there is just as little such separation in the private Swiss media. The situation is different with the public media, which charge citizens compulsory fees. Consumers have a right to the best possible separation of facts and opinions, but also to the inclusion of the opinions of democratically legitimized parties such as the AfD in Germany or the SVP in Switzerland.
However, there is no such thing as a news item that is neatly and 100 percent separated from any opinion in a meaningful journalistic text. This applies to daily newspapers, but even more so to a weekly newspaper like Weltwoche, which places events in a larger context, interprets them and – of course – comments on them. Newspapers that present readers with an opinion through their selection of facts, but act as if they are conveying naked information, are much more likely to be criticized. Incidentally, Weltwoche contains numerous columns in which columnists from the left to the right express their free opinion every week. Who says you have to separate commentary and research? This postulate is arbitrary, and I don’t know what authority, whatever its legitimacy, could or should “command” this. This demand also underestimates the power of judgment of the reader, who is often more mature and critical than journalists and commentators.
On a scientific level, the debate about the alleged separation of facts and opinions has long been settled since Karl R. Popper’s “Logic of Research”.[56] This was also emphasized by the distinguished Austrian journalist Peter Michael Lingens in the press.[57] Popper had dispelled the misconception that scientists develop their theories by randomly collecting facts from which they then distil the correct connections. The process is always the other way round: they start from a hypothesis which they then try to substantiate or “verify” with facts. Of course, if they are serious, they then take on the psychologically much more difficult task of “falsifying” their hypothesis: finding empirical results that speak against its correctness.
It should be similar in quality journalism: The good journalist primarily looks for evidence for the correctness of the hypothesis by means of which he wants to interpret a certain event – such as an election result – but he refrains from this interpretation if he comes across evidence to the contrary.
Value judgments cannot be derived scientifically from descriptions of facts. Propositions of ought never logically follow from propositions of being. This is an essential insight of British empiricism, represented for example by the philosopher David Hume. That is why journalism, as Weltwoche does, should always allow a variety of opinions, because you can never derive just one interpretation from facts, as if by natural law. In my opinion, however, this is exactly what happens too often in the media. That is why Weltwoche opposes any form of diversity of opinion and cultivates diversity of opinion. In this way, we also ensure that the reader doesn’t just get one view in our newspaper. In this way, we increase credibility and selection for better opinion-forming. We want to promote discussion and debate and encourage readers to think for themselves
Regardless of this, the free expression of opinions is journalistically important. As early as 1986, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarified in an important media ruling that if a fact is presented correctly, the journalist is of course entitled to make personal and moral assessments, provided that he presents them in words that can be considered appropriate. A very critical fact, which it is in any case possible to evaluate critically, may therefore be criticized with appropriately harsh words.[58]
I hope I have been of service to you with this information and send you my kind regards
Roger Köppel
[1] Roger Köppel: Diversity and encouragement, in: Die Weltwoche No. 51/52, 21.12.2023, p. 3.
[2] Roger Köppel: Corona, truth and arbitrariness, in: Die Weltwoche No. 14, 4.4.2024, p. 3.
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[4] Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs: “The war in Ukraine is over. The loser that will be saved by negotiations is Ukraine. The second loser is Europe.”, https://weltwoche.ch/daily/professor-jeffrey-d-sachs-der-krieg-in-der-ukraine-ist-vorbei-der-verlierer-der-durch-verhandlungen-gerettet-werden-wird-ist-die-ukraine-der-zweite-verlierer-ist-europa/
[5] Ivan Katchanovski: What really happened on the Maidan, in: Die Weltwoche No. 5, 2.2.2023, p. 44.
[6] Alice Bota, Kerstin Kohlenberg: Did the Americans buy the Maidan? In: Die Zeit. No. 20, 13.5.2015, p. 8 (zeit.de).
[7] Tagesschau.de: McCain supports opposition (Memento from December 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive)
[8] Victoria Nuland gives food for demonstration people in Ukraine. In: YouTube. Retrieved October 26, 2022 (German).
[9] Obama imposes sanctions against Ukraine. Tages-Anzeiger Ausland, February 20, 2014, retrieved on February 20, 2014.
[10] Michael von der Schulenburg, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations: Russia, the West and international law, in: Die Weltwoche No. 28, 11.7.2024, p. 38.
[11] Guy Mettan: Geschichte eines vermeidbaren Krieges, in: Die Weltwoche No. 8, 12.2.2023, p. 6
[12] Boxing world champion Vitali Klitschko is increasingly involved in Ukrainian politics, kas, 25. Jutta Sommerbauer: Wahlen in der Ukraine: Klitschkos schwierigster Kampf. In: Die Presse. October 27, 2012, retrieved on December 22, 2013. Konrad Schuller, Kiev: Ukraine: Staging a misunderstanding. In: FAZ.NET. ISSN 0174-4909 (faz.net [accessed October 18, 2021]): “He (Niko Lange) … had … tried to bring the fragmented Western-oriented opposition to the table – a natural task for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, as several parties on this spectrum, such as the groupings of the former ‘orange’ revolutionary leaders Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko, are associated with the European People’s Party (EPP), to which the German Union parties also belong, as observers.”
[13] Benjamin Abelow: Wie der Westen den Krieg in die Ukraine brachte, Die Rolle der USA und der Nato im Ukraine-Konflikt, Die Weltwoche, Spezial-Ausgabe, 27.10.2022, p. 12. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://weltwoche.ch/wp-content/uploads/wewo2022_43_UKRA-1.pdf
[14] Ibid.
[15] Benjamin Abelow: “We must end this war before it gets out of hand”, in: Die Weltwoche No. 43, special issue, 27.10.2022, p. 12.
[16] Ukraine|National Endowment for Democracy Self-disclosure of the National Endowment for Democracy.
[17] Website of the US Embassy in Russia: President Obama’s Interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN , transcript on CNN, accessed January 18, 2024
[18] Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call. BBC, February 7, 2014, retrieved on January 8, 2024 (English). ↑ U.S. blames Russia for leaking phone recording of cursing diplomat. In: YouTube. CBS Morning, February 7, 2014, retrieved on March 17, 2024 (English). ↑Nuland: No comment on private conversation about EU and Ukraine. In: YouTube. euronews, February 7, 2014, accessed March 17, 2024 (English). Recorded conversation between Asst. Sec. of State Victoria Nuland and Amb. Jeffery Pyatt. In: YouTube. SCMP Archive, November 19, 2020, retrieved March 17, 2024.
[19] Andreas Kappeler: Unequal Brothers: Russians and Ukrainians from the Middle Ages to the Present, 6th edition, Munich 2022, p. 222.
[20] Klaus von Donahnyi: “I fear that we are sleepwalking into a major war in Europe”, in: Die Weltwoche No. 21, 25.5.2022, p. 34.
[21] Sebastian Lüning: Who erased the medieval warm period? Climate history was distorted in the latest UN report. The traces lead to Bern, in: Die Weltwoche No. 33, 19.8.2021, pp. 32-33,
[22] https://www.magazin.uni-mainz.de/das-klima-bleibt-raetselhaft/#:~:text=Das%20Klima%20bleibt%20rätselhaft%20,%2827.08
[23] https://www.magazin.uni-mainz.de/das-klima-bleibt-raetselhaft/#:~:text=Das%20Klima%20bleibt%20rätselhaft%20,%2827.08
[24] https://www.helmholtz-klima.de/klimafakten/behauptung-schon-ueber-500-forscher-bezweifeln-den-menschengemachten-klimawandel#:~:text=Eine%20der%20bekanntesten%20solcher%20Listen,der%20wissenschaftlichen%20Literatur%20nicht%20gestützt
[25] https://judithcurry.com/2017/09/26/are-climate-models-overstating-warming/# , https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#:~:text=models%20as%20a%20group%20have,the%20models’%20forecasts%20were%20exaggerated
[26] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#
[27] https://www.magazin.uni-mainz.de/das-klima-bleibt-raetselhaft/#:~:text=Das%20Klima%20bleibt%20rätselhaft%20,%2827.08
[28] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#
[29] https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/26/observational-support-for-lindzens-iris-hypothesis/#:~:text=warmer%20climates%20have%20been%20proposed,hence%20an%20increase%20in%20OLR, https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/26/observational-support-for-lindzens-iris-hypothesis/#
[30] https://judithcurry.com/2017/09/26/are-climate-models-overstating-warming/#
[31] .https://www.helmholtz-klima.de/klimafakten/behauptung-schon-ueber-500-forscher-bezweifeln-den-menschengemachten-klimawandel#
[32] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#
[33] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#:~:text=by%20weather%20stations%20have%20been,has%20not%20changed%20at%20all
[34] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#
[35] https://www.hoover.org/research/flawed-climate-models#:~:text=The%20simulation%20of%20clouds%20in,bold%20and%20italics%20in%20original
[36] Christoph Blocher: Freedom instead of socialism, appeal to socialists in all parties, 3.4.2000, https://www.blocher.ch/2000/04/03/freiheit-statt-sozialismus/
[37] Wilhelm Röpke: Letters (1934-1966), edited by Eva Röpke, Erlenbach 1976.
[38] Ludwig von Mises: Die Gemeinwirtschaft, Jena 1932, reprint Munich 1981, p. 462.
[39] Wilhelm Röpke: Socialism and political dictatorship, in: NZZ, 18/19.1.1937.
[40] Friedrich August von Hayek: Der Weg zur Knechtschaft, ed. and introduced by Robert Röpke, translated by Eva Röpke, Erlenbach 1943. See also Friedrich August von Hayek: Die verhängnisvolle Anmassung, Die Irrtümer des Sozialismus, Tübingen 1996.
[41] Karl R. Popper: The Open Society and its Enemies, Christchurch 1944.
[42] Hannah Arendt: Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1955.
[43] Karl Dietrich Bracher: Zeit der Ideologien, Eine Geschichte politischer Denkens im 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1982.
[44] André Glucksmann: Am Ende des Tunnels, Das falsche Denken ging dem katastrophalen Handeln voraus, Eine Bilanz des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1991.
[45] François Furet: Le passé d’une illusion, Essai sur l’idée communiste au XXe siècle, Paris 1995.
[46] Stéphane Courtois et al: Le livre noir du communisme, Crime, terreurs et répression, Paris 1997.
[47] Jean-François Revel: La grande parade, Essai sur la survie de l’utopie socialiste, Paris 2000.
[48] Thierry Wolton: Red-Brown, the pact against democracy, Hamburg 2000.
[49] Hans Wilhelm Vahlefeld: Germany’s totalitarian traditions: National Socialism and SED Socialism as Political Religions, Stuttgart 2002.
[50] Christoph Blocher: Freedom instead of socialism, appeal to socialists in all parties, 3.4.2000, https://www.blocher.ch/2000/04/03/freiheit-statt-sozialismus/
[51] Berner Tagwacht, official publication of the SP Switzerland, No. 115, 20.4.1940, p. 1.
[52] Berner Tagwacht, official publication of the SP Switzerland, No. 141, 19.6.1940, p. 1.
[53] Berner Tagwacht, official publication of the SP Switzerland, No. 164, 16.7.1940, p. 1.
[54] Berner Tagwacht, official publication of the SP Switzerland, No. 166, 18.7.1940, p. 1.
[55] Berner Tagwacht, official publication of the SP Switzerland, No. 2, 4.1.1941, p. 1.
[56] Karl R. Popper: Logic of Research, Heidelberg 1934.
[57] Peter Michael Lingens: Clean separation of news and commentary? There is no such thing, in: Die Presse, 24.5.2013, https://www.diepresse.com/1409614/saubere-trennung-von-nachricht-und-kommentar-das-gibt-es-nicht
[58] ECtHR July 8, 1986 – complaint number 12/1984/84/131, judgment (English)