Dangerous return to snitching in Germany

Every totalitarian regime relies not only on a drastic curtailment of freedoms, but also on a large network of citizens in charge of informing on any other citizen who goes against the system's guidelines. The Nazis implemented this lever of power, whereby even children were forced to denounce their parents to the Gestapo. The communist regime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) adopted and perfected the practice, and its dreaded State Security (Stasi) came to have more than 300,000 citizen informers of others, and monitors of the lives of others. 

Of course, the practice continues to be carried out with greater or lesser vigour, and usually with no means spared, in regimes such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Russia and a long and colourful etcetera. 

The practice was considered banished where it was first systematised as an instrument of political and social control, namely in Germany. Well, now it seems that those nostalgic for that custom, which stifled freedoms, made people's smiles disappear and provoked a general attitude of distrust among the common citizenry, are re-emerging. 

It is almost hard to believe, but the promoters of such a dangerous return to snitching are none other than the Greens, the environmentalist party that was expected to become a serious government alternative after the general elections of 26 September and the voluntary departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel from the German and European political scene. 

A priori, the pretext has a purpose that would justify in the eyes of public opinion the use of all kinds of means: the fight against tax fraud. The Greens' candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, has included anonymous whistleblowing in her election manifesto. Baerbock told the TV station ProSieben that "we have to create places where [citizens] can report tax fraud... or any other kind of crime". 

This was not a one-off outburst. For several days now, several regional environmental leaders had been calling for the creation of anonymous whistleblower portals. A day before Baerbock solemnly enshrined this principle, another prominent Green leader, Baden-Württemberg state finance minister Danyal Bayaz, had been blunt: "It is imperative," he said in a statement to the media, "that tax collection offices be able to find out about all kinds of irregularities through any system that makes it easier for them to do so. Citizens could use such a portal to report violations of criminal and tax laws securely and anonymously". The minister's stated purpose is to "break down citizens' inhibitions so that, from their own homes, they can help ensure tax justice". 

The launch of the whistleblower system in Baden-Württemberg, applauded by Green leader Annalena Baerbock, has provoked a cascading reaction from much of the political spectrum in the Bundestag, although it is less clear that most parties are averse and repugnant to the massive use of the citizen whistleblower system, a prelude to perhaps even further tax fraud spill-overs. Baerbock even appeals to the EU to justify his support, citing Brussels' enormous concern to counter tax fraud and money laundering with coherent and effective measures. 

Evoking the Nazi-imposed figure of the bloc guardians, FDP regional chairman Michael Theurer said that "imposing this kind of mentality again changes our society... but for the worse". The most serious accusation came from the chairman of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, who warned voters of the danger of Germany being governed by a red-green-red coalition, led by the social democratic SPD, in coalition with the Greens and the Left: "With communism and the Stasi experience of the many former agents still alive, there is no doubt that the extremists of The Left Party would flood the tax agencies with complaints."

Although the SPD has not disavowed the Greens' initiative, German press, radio and television analysts recall that the SPD's current candidate for the federal chancellorship, Olaf Scholz, had backed the payment of two million euros to an "anonymous source" last February, who allegedly provided the identities, bank accounts and financial assets in Dubai of millions of people, most of them German, but also of other nationalities, presumably French, Italian, Austrian and Spanish.  

Supporters of the anonymous whistleblowing portal recall the Swiss financial analyst Hervé Falciani, who stole millions in data on suspected tax evaders while working for the British financial institution HSBC Private. Falciani, who fled Switzerland at the end of 2008, first tried to sell his trove of data to the highest bidder in Lebanon, but the list ended up in the hands of French authorities, who in turn negotiated its delivery to the many countries, including Spain, from which the suspected fraudsters originated. 

The launch of the anonymous portal in Germany is sure to arouse the greed of more than a few citizens who, under the guise of helping tax justice, hope to be financially rewarded for their whistleblowing.