False: „Germany will never fulfill its energy requirements with only wind energy and solar power.“

On March 26th 2022, Stephan Brandner, Deputy Federal Spokesperson of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), posted a press release on Instagram in which he claims that Germany will never fulfill its energy demand with only wind energy and solar power. Different studies have proven that this statement is false. In the past the…

Uncheckable: “Generation Z has more mental health problems than any other generation before”

German trend researcher Corinna Mühlhausen claims to have found out that “Generation Z suffers from psychological problems more than any other generation before it”. Even though the numbers of psychotherapies of children and adolescents are rising rapidly right now, it is not possible to verify this fact clearly. Therefore this claim must be classified as…

fact checking

Mostly false: “Postal voting is a big problem and electoral fraud is a sad truth in Germany”

On August 15th 2021, the German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) claimed on Facebook that postal voting in Germany is “not a solution, but a problem” and that every election year has significant cases of electoral fraud. In the German federal election 2021, AfD member Björn Höcke called the people to go to…

Mostly true: Germany has not let only urgently needed specialists into the country

The German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ranks among the harshest critics of the countries refugee policy. In November 2021, the representative spokesman of the party, Stephan Brandner, released a statement in which he claims that not only urgently needed specialists have been let into the country. We rate this claim as mostly true.…

Mostly True: “Left-wing extremism continues to grow and grow stronger in Germany”

The German politician Malte Kaufmann from the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) wants to classify anti-fascist groups as terrorist networks and have them banned. He cites the rising numbers of left-wing extremist crimes in Germany as justification. The claim turns out to be mostly true. The reason for Kaufmann’s claim was an article by…

False: “Corona vaccine kills more people than all other vaccines in the past 20 years“

The European Commission is hiding fatal side effects after a corona vaccination – this is what Joachim Kuhs, Member of the European Parliament for the German right-wing populist party AfD, claims. He supports his statement with respectable sources that are right in themselves. However, his interpretation of them is wrong. On October 5, 2021, AfD…

True: „One third of EU exports to South Korea are made in Germany“

The lobby organization Initiative for Social Market Economy (INSM) published nine facts about the EU on their website. One of them is “One third of EU exports to South Korea are made in Germany”, which seemed to be true.  The INSM is financed by employers’ associations and, according to its own statement, acts independently of political parties. As…