• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

03/18/2010

He was a master of language -- bitingly ironic, barbed and precise. But the left-wing journalist and popular songwriter Kurt Tucholsky also had to worry about his safety during the Weimar Republic, so he wrote under several pseudonyms: Kaspar Hauser, Ignaz Wrobel, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger.

Tucholsky, a contemporary of Bertolt Brecht's who fought for the Social Democrats even before the Weimar Republic -- during Germany's imperial era, under Kaiser Wilhelm -- has been dead for 75 years. But his pseudonyms are fresh as spring, because a well-informed political blog written under pseudonyms like "Kaspar Hauser," "Peter Panter" and "Theobald Tiger" has shaken up the race for governor this year in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.

Political blogs have been a force in the English-speaking world for several years, but in Germany they're something new. The example being set in North Rhine-Westphalia has shown the German political class just how bloggers can sway an election. Empirical evidence of their influence is still slim, but it's obvious to political scientists like Jürgen Falter, who's based in Mainz, that campaigns in the era of the Internet will prove "much more difficult to plan." Falter defines blogs as a "new anarchistic element," in part because the "power of indiscretion" has grown.

Embarrassing

Since late 2009 the self-appointed heirs of Tucholsky have written a blog called "Wir in NRW" (roughly, "We Here in North Rhine-Westphalia"), a title that will remind German readers of cronyism. The bloggers lash out at many politicians, but they focus on the state governor, Jürgen Rüttgers, a conservative Christian Democrat seeking re-election on May 9. They regularly publish internal e-mails from the archives of power, a number of which have proved embarrassing for Rüttgers' party, the CDU. Who stole what is still not clear.

The bloggers claim they never intended to become an instrument in the campaign. The purpose of the site was to spread news about the government that the mainstream press ignored. Not only did they want to shine a spotlight on Rüttgers; they also wanted irritate a man they identified as responsible for lukewarm coverage of state politics: Bodo Hombach, chief of a publishing concern called WAZ, which owns nine newspapers in Germany.

The name of the blog is a barb aimed at Hombach, a one-time cabinet aide to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. "Wir in NRW" was 1980s-era campaign slogan dreamed up by Hombach and used by Johannes Rau, a Social Democrat and former governor of the state. The phrase also serves as the name of the WAZ Group's 100-volume media archive, a sort of regional encyclopedia completed and released to state libraries and institutions last October. But neither Social Democrats nor the publishing house had protected the name, so the new blog went online in December without a hitch.

WAZ Insiders

It was an immediate hit. "In December alone," says Alfons Pieper, the one blogger who writes under his real name, "we had 100,000 visitors." Pieper was once deputy editor of the WAZ group. He functions as the blog's boss and public face. His colleagues work under "pseudonym protection."

The problem for the CDU is that massive amounts of internal communication have obviously been leaked by somebody since Rüttgers took office in 2005. The e-mail stream in question seems to flow between the state chancellery, the government's nerve center, and the state party leadership of the CDU. Hundreds of e-mails appear to have been hijacked internally, rather than hacked from outside. The state attorney's office in Düsseldorf has recently opened an investigation into "data eavesdropping" as a result of a criminal complaint filed by the CDU.

Many of the e-mails are banal. One relevant tidbit, though, is a document from Boris Berger, a confidant of Rüttgers. On March 1, 2010, the blog published a message from him with commentary from Theobald Tiger. Published just after Rüttgers' election, the message has policy advice for the boss. The "goal," writes Berger, was to build "a network for you spanning the state … where you stand in the middle, unfettered by functional concerns."

'Is the Tiger Hungry?'

The blog gained momentum when Panter, Tiger and company revealed in January that the president of the state legislature, Regina van Dinther, was 12 years behind in membership dues for the CDU. Then a source called "Anonymous" wrote in claiming to have access to documents from centers of power for both the party and the state. "Anonymous" claimed to be "sort of a collection agency for anyone with a grudge."

Since then the CDU has been on edge. New offers of dirt arrive on the bloggers' cell phones by text message: "Is the Tiger hungry?" If he answers "Yes," he receives a new pack of electronic files by e-mail.

There was another tiger-feeding in Düsseldorf recently. An e-mail account for "Wir in NRW" received screenshots from computers in the state chancellery. They were meant to show that one of Rüttgers' political appointees was doing work on government time for the party. The story was soon on the Web under the headline "Jürgen Rüttgers' Socio-Political Profile for the CDU, as Written by the State Government's Chief Speechwriter." The CDU's incoming general secretary, Andreas Krautscheid, soft-pedals the story: "That's ancient news, and not legally objectionable," he says.

Nevertheless the mood in the halls of power in Düsseldorf is tense. Another blog, called "Barons of the Ruhr," also seems well provided with tips by Christian Democrat insiders, though they don't obviously consist of malcontents in Rüttgers' circle. The bloggers apparently have information from environmentalists. One writer at the blog, David Schraven, who also works for the daily newspaper Die Welt, says more "revelations" will trickle in as election day draws near.

If any of the revelations can move the political earth, at least one old Tucholsky pseudonym remains to be used: "Old Shatterhand."