The large portal of the “pediatricians Wedel” is wide open, behind it there is a lot of hustle and bustle. Children do gymnastics through the aisles, parents stare into their smartphones while waiting. Discussions about appointments, illnesses and symptoms at reception. But again and again adults without offspring come to the counter and wish the practice team a thick skin. The word “perseverance” is used more frequently during a short visit to the practice – because things are brewing behind the scenes.
Just a few months after the tragic case of the doctor Lisa-Maria Kellermayr, who committed suicide because of hate and hate speech, opponents of vaccination and lateral thinkers are again attacking those who want to help. The doctor’s office receives threatening calls, is rated miserably on the Internet and in relevant Telegram groups, lateral thinkers call for harassment and coercion. There it says, for example: “Chasing the assholes through the Internet, calling that the phone won’t stop ringing! What a disgusting bastard.” Below is a picture of three people being publicly executed.
Lawyer Markus Haintz, who has made a name for himself among opponents of vaccination, also shared a similar call, but later deleted it. The lateral-thinking singer Nina Maleika even announced her personal visit to the practice. Screenshots of the countless hostilities can be found, among other things, in the “Volksverpetzer”.
The trigger was a new guideline that was to apply to the “pediatricians Wedel” from October 1, 2022: Originally, Dr. Lawin Mosecker, Dr. Rett and Dr. Troester agreed that vaccinations for young patients should be “the prerequisite for treatment in our practice and for the medical support of children and adolescents”.
Whether this approach is contestable is open to debate and needs to be clarified. The Schleswig-Holstein Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVSH) states: “After receiving a notification, we informed the pediatric practice in Wedel of the applicable legal situation and the resulting contractual medical obligations. According to this, vaccinated and unvaccinated patients have an equal right to treatment.” Accordingly, the doctors’ website now says: “In the future, we would like the vaccinations of children to be implemented in our practice, starting at the latest in the 6th month of life.” In this context, they offer detailed advice, education and catch-up vaccinations.
The problem did not exist before, because the orientation of the practice prior to October 1st was different: when Dr. Alexander Konietzky was still part of the practice, the vaccination rule did not apply. Konietzky is not only a doctor in private practice, but also the medical director of “Doctors for Individual Vaccination Decisions” (ÄfI) and a board member of the association. He believes that vaccinations for children should be an individual decision, he refused the corona vaccination for children. Together with his club colleague Dr. Jost Deerberg has been running Konietzky’s private practice for children and adolescents in Hamburg-Blankenese since the beginning of autumn. A focus of his work: homeopathic treatment of children.
Back to Wedel. During a visit, the star asks how the situation is on site. “Unfortunately, we can’t comment on that at the moment,” it says both at the counter and in a later conversation with one of the doctors. Why that is, one does not want to say. One possible explanation would be ongoing investigations into opponents of vaccination and agitators, who are disrupting the important work of the doctors. After all: The operation, it seems, is largely running normally. Only nobody answers the phone, the answering machine is full – the sad result of the online hunt, which has dire consequences in real life.
The KVSH cannot help. She explains: “The KVSH condemns in the strongest terms the threats that are made against the pediatric practice on social media. We fundamentally reject any form of defamation, hate comments / hate speech and hate campaigns. Such hostilities and threats are absolutely repugnant as well as unacceptable and must ultimately be prosecuted.” But: “We as KV have no way of physically or digitally protecting practices that are exposed to public hostilities and threats. We can therefore only urgently recommend affected practices to contact the local police to report the incidents and the authors of the display hate comments.”
But something is happening. Google has deleted the countless negative reviews from people who have never been there. The tasteless name “Children and misanthropes Wedel”, which unknown people had entered in the search engine, has also disappeared. Meanwhile, the hacktivists of Anonleaks are dedicated to the loudest voices of lateral thinkers. “Anonleaks” says: “Haintz (the scene lawyer, editor’s note) has now crossed a red line, which will turn out to be a semipermeable wall for him. There is no turning back from this path. And there is no way for him to ever put out the fire he’s starting now.” Others take care of the fire that burns behind the scenes of the practice.
As in the case of Dr. Kellermayr brings in a well-known voice when it comes to identifying perpetrators: Ornella Al-Lami. The hacker, who spoke to Stern about her “side job” a few weeks ago, is in close contact with lawyers and forwards the (apparently easy to find) data of those who publicly violate the law on the Internet. Most of the tracks lead to the camp of people who have already attracted attention in the past with their transfigured and sometimes dangerous worldview.
One of these lawyers is Matthias Klein from Karlsruhe, specialist lawyer for medical law and criminal law. He says to the star: “A new wave is currently building up and the first practice has come under fire, more will follow, unfortunately. Parallels to the case in Austria are opening up. I am currently working on a criminal complaint against those involved, I am in close contact with Nella.”
Klein is an expert in this field. At the beginning of the pandemic, he represented numerous doctors and practices who have become victims of threats, insults and sometimes physical assaults because they vaccinate people, especially children, against the virus. As an example he gives Dr. Wolfgang von Meißner and his team from Baiersbronn. At that time, too, he was in close contact with the investigating authorities. In some practices, it got so bad that police protection was needed, says Klein.
Luckily this is not yet the case in Wedel – even if access to the practice is restricted due to online terror. The threats are now with the responsible authorities, the controversial directive will probably have to be discussed – civilly and in the right rounds.
Attorney Klein provides tips on what to do if you become a victim of such a campaign yourself. You have to “involve the team from the practice and train all employees preventively on how to act in a de-escalating manner on the one hand, but also how to exercise your own rights from the point of view of self-defense on the other”. And very important: “You have to investigate each individual case. Stay tuned.”
For hate postings, for example, you should use the Netzbeweis tool to secure content using IT forensics. Matthias Klein also advises: “If you realize that a shitstorm is about to break out, you should by no means ignore it, but rather take care of it (possibly with the professional help of an SM expert and a criminal lawyer). An official statement must be made, with de-escalating words you gain time. Gather all the facts about the problem, describe exactly what happened when and what you did when. Many social media experts recommend making this completely transparent by creating a new, previously unavailable on Google listed website (e.g. as a new page on your own website) and reports there with the date and time similar to a live ticker (with an open comment function). This should succeed in attracting the mood makers and thus the discussion to this page.”
Legally, says the lawyer, it only helps to secure the browser links to the respective hate posts and to report each individual case. That, so small, is easier than expected. He explains: “With a criminal complaint you describe a situation in which you consider the action or omission of another to be punishable. If you now attach the network evidence PDFs and (very important!) file a criminal complaint “from all possible points of view”. The authorities must investigate the perpetrator(s) (if necessary against unknown persons) if there is an initial suspicion of a criminal offence.” If you are afraid for your own identity, it helps to consult an experienced lawyer. The lawyer advises against filing a criminal complaint with local police stations in cases of hate speech. It often happens there, as research by Jan Böhmermann shows, that people who complain are turned away. A list of online police stations can be found here.
The texts and demands of the “pediatricians Wedel” changed on the evening of October 27th. Instead of an obligation for patients, the practice now speaks of the desire that vaccinations for children be implemented in practice. We have adjusted the relevant paragraph.
