The 5th day of the trial on November 12, 2024 brought astonishing things to light.
The day was characterized by the questioning of a senior tax official from the Karlsruhe Regional Tax Office.
He explained what had prompted him to take action in the Ballweg case in 2021.
According to him, Michael Ballweg had been a blank slate for the tax authorities until then, honest and inconspicuous.
But with Ballweg's activities surrounding the demonstrations for basic rights, peace, freedom
and justice, the leading media suddenly stirred.
According to the tax official, he received information from these media about a possible criminal offense.
The official and his colleague then began to do their own research and came across the ZDF satire by
Jan Böhmermann: "The Corona Entrepreneur of the Year".
This mainstream program mockingly denigrated the entire truth movement and activities to protect
fundamental rights as a self-serving "business model".
The Belltower website of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation concludes: "Querdenken" and the initiative's environment around Michael
Ballweg try to create a selfless image of activists who do everything they can against
the alleged threat to freedom and democracy.
But the conspiracy gurus are making money, and probably not too little.
Fear, credulity and ignorance are obviously very good at selling T-shirts, hoodies and bus trips."
These and similar voices from the mainstream and an outsider from the lateral thinking movement seemed to have had a
lasting effect on the tax official's perception and actions.
Presumably not just him.
More on this in the following discussion:
Moderator: Michael, the first question goes to you.
Who or what business model has the lateral thinking movement been up against with its demonstrations and activities?
Michael Ballweg: Yes, I think there have been many profiteers from the pandemic.
Let's start at the very beginning.
These were, of course, the test center operators at the bottom.
Then the pharmaceutical industry further up, then the digital corporations, the digital-financial complex and
there were also a lot of politicians who enriched themselves.
I think we covered a broad spectrum here, where we brought light into the public eye with our demos.
To measures that are not in order, but of course also to financial transactions and marketing processes that
should take place within the framework of restrictions on fundamental rights or within the framework of health.
The accusation is that I misappropriated funds or acted incorrectly from a tax point of view.
But yesterday the witness from the Chief Tax Authority had to admit that I was the only one who had
developed a successful business model with demonstrations.
And he had to smile a little himself and then withdrew it.
And said that he probably wouldn't write the note the same way today.
Moderator: Who do our leading media serve when they view this matter in this way and have reported it in this form?
Scaremongering about the corona p(l)andemia and the fact that a business model like this is being supported?
Michael Ballweg: Yes, we know today and there is also the relevant information. On the Internet (you can see),
probably also on Kla.TV, how the media groups are connected to the big foundations, how they are financed there.
We know that Bill Gates has also given a lot of money to Der Spiegel, for example.
Today I saw a report that DIE ZEIT has received 36 million euros from the German government in the last three years.
In other words, they are no longer independent media.
But I must also say that the pandemic is of course serving us or the alternative leading media, i.e. you, as
an accelerator, as a multiplier. There are now two systems that are at odds with each other.
The old systems, which rely heavily on censorship, and the new systems, which have a liberal principle.
And I believe that more and more people are joining the new systems.
That's why the repression also serves to move people towards change.
So we should actually be grateful that we are able to accompany and experience this whole process.
And I'm not angry at all, but the leading media have always insulted us, have said that the demonstrations, for example at
the Cannstatter Wasen, the demonstrators were all conspiracy theorists and I don't
want to repeat everything that was said there.
But in the end, that led to people getting into their cars and saying, now more than ever, I'm going to a demonstration.
Let's see what happens in the next few weeks.
Moderator: So the pandemic - or plandemic - did have some positive aspects.
Michael Ballweg: This is a major change process.
We know what is coming up with the 2030 Agenda or what should be coming up.
And the agenda is clear, but our non-participation culture is also clear.
Moderator: Good, thank you very much. The next question is for the lawyers.
You have already mentioned it: somewhere in the witness interview, the senior tax official indicated that his
image of the lateral thinking movement should be revised.
What influence does this have on the further process?
Is there somehow a turning point?
Gregor Samimi: Yes, we had the opportunity yesterday to question the finance officer, who is, after all, a director.
In principle, he has reached the final salary level.
So we could expect this to be a very knowledgeable official.
And we also hoped that he would be able to answer our questions.
And in this context, it also became clear that Michael Ballweg, for example, did not make any profits in
2020, but rather generated losses of around 25,000 euros.
And one year later, in 2021, the losses even amounted to around 55,000 euros.
And that is a key line of defense that we have taken here.
So we submitted this certificate as counter-evidence to prove that Michael had not made any profits and therefore should
not have paid any additional taxes, but had only made losses.
And in this respect, together with my colleague Ralf Ludwig, I believe that a very
important victory on points was achieved yesterday.
Moderator: Are there any additions to this?
Ralf Ludwig: Perhaps a little more specifically on the question of whether there is a process of change.
I think that happened yesterday on two levels, with the government director from the Chief Finance Directorate.
We actually experienced a very, very knowledgeable witness who explained everything very clearly on
a factual level, and explained it very correctly.
However, he became involved in 2021 when there were complaints against Michael Ballweg and the suspicion that
Michael Ballweg was running a business with lateral thinking and intended to make a profit with this business.
And this clerk, or clerk he is not, at management level, has very, very neatly substituted the legal requirements.
So a lawyer couldn't have done it any better than he did.
He has actually been confronted with this. What if, to answer the question, Michael Ballweg might have to pay any advance
taxes on the income he earns, i.e. make advance tax payments?
That was basically the question he asked himself.
And on the other level, but on the factual level, i.e. on the legal level, he subsumed cleanly and on the factual
level he assumed that my office and the tax authorities in Baden-Württemberg would function properly.
And they will make the right decisions with the information they have.
But that didn't happen.
And that means that, in principle, I would say, he failed as a controller, because he always said, I assume
that, well, he assumed that Michael Ballweg had generated income that he had not generated at all.
And I think that actually changed something in him yesterday.
And it may well have become clear to him yesterday during the examination of the witnesses that Michael Ballweg actually did
his job out of love or out of a relationship to fundamental rights and that it was never intended to make money
here, to create a business model, but that the idea behind it was always to protect fundamental rights.
I think that happened yesterday.
I assume it will work very, very hard in the witness.
And I am curious to see what will happen now, when we see more employees from the tax
authorities, whether something might change.
Moderator: Could one then say, as a conclusion today, that Michael Ballweg and the entire lateral thinking
movement have been rehabilitated to a certain extent with regard to intentions to enrich or defraud?
Ralf Ludwig: So what does rehabilitation mean?
So possibly a rehabilitation before a state court, before an ordinary court, possibly yes.
But I believe that the rehabilitation process in society has long since begun.
And I think most people, even those who have shown themselves to be opposed to lateral thinking and
Michael Ballweg in the past, now realize what has happened.
And in the end, more and more publications that we have are now showing that what Michael Ballweg took to the streets for,
what the lateral thinking movement took to the streets for, is proving to be true and is not and was not a conspiracy theory.
And from my point of view, that would just be the icing on the cake.
But perhaps Michael can say a bit more about what his motivation is in this process, what he would
like to see as a result of this process, so to speak.
More about the question of whether or not he will now be acquitted under criminal law.
Michael Ballweg: Yes, I actually believe that many people who were at the demonstrations never believed this nonsense.
Perhaps one or two people have been unsettled by such an accusation.
There's just so much, so much information coming at us, where we might succumb to misinformation.
Especially, of course, when they are widely distributed by the leading media.
So the question is, are we now rehabilitated?
So I never believe that the people who were at the demonstrations and I also saw that in
the witness interviews that I studied in prison.
I received all the surveys and there was a huge majority who said that I gave my money without
conditions and I wouldn't have cared what you did with it.
In other words, it didn't happen that way.
I am now going through this phase - I call it the phase of clarification - and we can now see how much arbitrariness
and confusion there was on the part of the authorities.
That is why I am now taking on this process as a lighthouse.
We are now doing the reappraisal and using this time to draw attention to the other fates
of those persecuted during the coronavirus era.
I am by no means the only one there.
And the second thing is, of course, that we are now learning in these witness interviews how arbitrarily the
authorities function, how little coordination there is.
In the end, the statements are always: I only did what my job is.
There was no four-eyes principle or the public prosecutor's office was.
So passing the buck is nothing other than what happened during the coronavirus period.
Everyone just went along with it and in the end nobody wants to have done it and that's why this
process is also a great start for the corona recovery.
You are an important part of this and I am therefore delighted that you were there today, that you went
to all this trouble and that you are supporting us.
And I think it's also important that we have great cohesion in the alternative movement.
We had great cohesion in 2020, then came the state's decomposition measures, then came the financial repression,
account terminations, account confiscations and now, I think, after four years, a lot
of light is also coming to us from the USA.
Peter Hahne has described how he perceives the energy of the people there, how many people are in a spirit of optimism.
I hope that this spirit of optimism will now pick up speed again in Germany and that people will help shape the change.
Moderator: Yes, okay, thank you very much and we will continue to monitor the whole thing.
Michael Ballweg: Yes, with pleasure. Thank you very much. Moderator: Many thanks to the whole group.