We are receiving a great deal of feedback about our meeting with Anetta Kahane, head of the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung.
With this statement we respond to some critical opinions and concerns in connection with our post of yesterday:
What happened?
WerteInitiative met Anetta Kahane, head of the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, and subsequently commented positively on this meeting and on the foundation’s work in a posting on Facebook.
The subject of the meeting was an exchange about shared perspectives for action to protect democracy, such as a strategy against online hate. Both actors seek to protect the free democratic basic order. Such an exchange therefore suggests itself.
What was criticised?
More than 30 years ago, Ms Anetta Kahane was an unofficial collaborator of the Staatssicherheit in the former GDR.
We are now being accused of not having informed ourselves sufficiently about who we were dealing with.
WerteInitiative, it is claimed, has therefore apparently adopted a different set of convictions.
Ms Kahane, it is argued, should not be allowed to run the affairs of a foundation such as the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung even after such a long time, and the expert report drawn up in 2012 by the political scientist Helmut Müller-Engbers – which assessed the endangerment of third parties through Ms Anetta Kahane’s Stasi activity – is said not to be credible.
Some comments on this:
First of all, we expressly thank you for the lively interest in political topics, for engaging with such content together and, in particular, for the critical questioning.
In times of political disenchantment and populism, that is a good sign for democracy and for a lively culture of debate. However, commentators on all sides made insults that cannot be tolerated.
We can assure you that WerteInitiative has undergone no change of convictions.
WerteInitiative sees itself in the political centre of society and has no sympathy whatsoever for right-wing or left-wing radicals.
In the course of our efforts to establish an exchange with the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, we naturally informed ourselves thoroughly in advance about who we were dealing with.
We are in contact with actors of various political persuasions, and work with them on specific issues, if they are avowed democrats and do not use the means of democracy in order to abolish it. In this sense both Ms Kahane and the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung are suitable partners for an exchange of ideas with WerteInitiative.
Ms Anetta Kahane worked for the Stasi at the time. She was an unofficial collaborator and ended the cooperation for ideological reasons while the GDR still existed. At that point she was in her late twenties.
She later apologised personally to the people about whom she had had to report.
Moreover, over the past 30 years Ms Kahane has always spoken publicly in critical terms about the Stasi and also about her own activity as an unofficial collaborator. She has even written a book on the subject.
Criticism, including of the foundation’s work, is of course permitted. Because of their work, the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, its staff and its chairwoman are exposed to the most massive hostility and threats, up to and including death threats. As with all democrats who are threatened for their commitment, we stand in solidarity with them.A particularly productive appointment was the meeting with the head of the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, Anetta Kahane. The foundation is a very well-known and important actor in the fight against right-wing extremism and antisemitism and therefore has a large thematic overlap with us. In numerous projects it strengthens civil society, supports victims of right-wing violence and develops strategies against antisemitism.
We – Elio Adler and Johannes Sarcher – presented the work of WerteInitiative. Shared perspectives for action were discussed in order to strengthen our democracy and to protect the free democratic basic order. Specifically, an exchange was agreed on, among other things, strategies against online hate.
We wish the foundation every success with its projects and look forward to productive cooperation.
