2019
HOW GERMAN STATE TV SUPPORTED APARTHEID
IM AUFTRAG DES APARTHEID REGIMES
Germany/South Africa
10 min. tv dcumentary, online and crossmedia web doc
author, director: Marcel Kolvenbach
ARD German TV / Report Mainz
Secret documents reveal how the apartheid regime exploited German politicians and journalists for propaganda, exposing a massive attempt to influence German politics.
Twentyfive years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, previously unknown documents classified as secret or confidential have come to light, proving that German politicians and journalists were systematically exploited by the former regime in Pretoria. The files doiscovered by Berlin based historian Dr. Andeas Kahrs contain letters and telegrams, as well as strategy papers, situation reports, and handwritten notes. They originate from the Ministry of Information in Pretoria and from the estate of the PR agency Hennenhofer in Königstein im Taunus.
Günter Verheugen was a German politician who was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1983 to 1998. In the early 1980s, Verheugen mapped out a principled policy towards South Africa's apartheid regime, embarrassing many of Germany's major companies, including Mercedes Benz and Deutsche Bank, by exposing their efforts to get round international sanctions in a book published in 1986. Confronted with the evidence, he comments in the film: “This is the most outrageous, most massive attempt to influence German politics by illegitimate, corrupt means that I have ever encountered in my entire life.“
ARD Press Release