Jürgen Roth

Jürgen Roth    (Investigative journalist, Author)
Born	4 November 1945 Frankfurt on Main
Died	28 September 2017 (Age 71) Frankfurt on Main
Nationality	German
Interests	• organized crime • white collar crime
German investigative journalist who has published many books on organized crime.

Jürgen Roth was a German publicist and investigative journalist. After graduating from high school, Roth completed an apprenticeship as a freight forwarder. He left the occupation and spent a year in Turkey in 1968. Since 1971, he has published books and television documentaries on organized crime with a focus on Eastern Europe, Germany and international terrorism. He was also active in the organization Business Crime Control. Roth was of the opinion that organized crime was deeply intertwined with the economic system and that it was an integral part of economic life in Europe. Roth died after a serious illness in September 2017 at the age of 71.

Reception and legal proceedings

The Rheinische Post sees Roth as one of the "best experts on the subject". However, he is considered a "contentious and, due to his polemics, controversial journalist," according to the Berliner Zeitung. Thomas Feltes, criminologist at the Ruhr University Bochum, wrote about his publications: "Without his books, the common reader would miss something, and certainly also some investigators who, after publication, will greedily search for who is quoted, named or otherwise indirectly mentioned there".

There were several court cases against Roth because of his publications. Gerhard Schröder took legal action against his 2006 book: Der Deutschland-Clan: Das skrupellose Netzwerk aus Politikern, Top-Managern und Justiz (The German clan: The unscrupulous network of politicians, top managers and the judiciary), in which Roth also dealt with the former Federal Chancellor. The court ruled that Roth had to rewrite a passage in the book in which he linked Schröder's trip to the United Arab Emirates with his work for Gazprom. However, Schröder's lawyers also tried to prevent the sale of the new, unobjected edition by issuing warnings to booksellers. Roth had presented an excerpt of his research activities in advance on the news portal Fair Observer.

Following a temporary injunction obtained by the lawyer of a Leipzig restaurateur at the Leipzig Regional Court, the 2009 book Mafialand Deutschland (Mafia country Germany) had to be withdrawn from bookstores and could then only be sold with redacted passages.

In February 2010, former Bulgarian Interior Minister Rumen Petkov sued Jürgen Roth for defamation after Roth had linked Petkov to the mafia and illegal drug trafficking. On October 14, 2010, Roth was acquitted by the Sofia District Court and the charge of defamation was dismissed.

Sachsensumpf

From summer 2007, Roth wrote about the Sachsensumpf (allegations of membership in mafia structures among high-ranking politicians, lawyers, police officers and journalists). Roth was severely criticized by the journalist Reiner Burger, who described the Sachsensumpf as a legend, in a series of articles in the FAZ. Burger also justified the criticism with past lost court cases; according to Burger, Roth was sentenced to damages by the Hamburg District Court in 2000 for his book: Die graue Eminenz (The gray eminence) published in 1999 and for a television report in 1999. Among other things, Burger accused Roth of failing to speak directly to the people concerned. In this context, Roth had to retract statements on his homepage about a Leipzig entrepreneur. The witness to whom he had referred had told an untruth and Roth was sentenced to a fine of 4,200 euros by the Dresden district court in spring 2008. The investigative committee of the Saxon state parliament did not come to a clear conclusion about the "Sachsensumpf" in 2009. The CDU and FDP consider it to be disproven, while the Greens and Left Party claim to have found no evidence, as the committee of inquiry was largely denied access to files by the state government. The public prosecutor's office did not investigate further.

Roth defended himself by saying that he had only questioned the person directly in one case for a blog entry and criticized Burger's attacks as "Kafkaesque" because, among other things, Burger ignored the fact that important witnesses in the "Sachsensumpf" were put under pressure. Burger did receive the "Sächsische Verfassungsmedaille" (Saxonian Constitutional Medal) in 2009, which is is awarded by the Free State of Saxony to persons who have rendered outstanding services to the liberal democratic development of the Free State.

 

A Quote by Jürgen Roth

Page	Quote	Date	Source
"Conspiracy theorist"	“German Business News: You dedicate a whole chapter to the Bilderbergers. What influence do the Bilderbergers really exert? Jürgen Roth: Compared to the "round tables" I described, their influence is rather small. What stands out among the Bilderbergers is not so much the secrecy or the strict isolation in luxury enclaves, but who the initiators are. They are US banks and US corporations, as well as the Deutsche Bank. At its core, it is a kind of neoliberal think tank, whose members sometimes have a rather obscure biography. And they try, with more or less great success, to win over politicians who are well-disposed towards them and their goals. These in turn feel flattered when they are invited. And it is particularly revealing that only representatives of neo-liberalism are invited. Critics of capitalism will not be found there. German Business News: Where is the line between real power and conspiracy theory? You criticize the network of the "Round Tables". What is behind it? Jürgen Roth: There is no conspiracy theory, only the conspiracy of a small, exclusive, European, economic and political elite against the social and democratic state. Their goal is clearly an ideological revolution, the widespread implementation of a free, untamed market economy. Ulisses Garrido, the former Portuguese trade union leader and current director of the Education Department of the European Trade Union Confederation, is far from any conspiracy theory. He explained it to me like this: "What is to be achieved is a complete change in society, without the population having any say in the matter. It is undoubtedly a silent coup." [...] Jürgen Roth: The purpose of this silent coup is also the privatization of all state enterprises, or state or municipal real estate. The Deutsche Bank demands this particularly strongly. Companies are sold off at a ridiculous price, often to the favoured of the ruling political system. Vital areas such as education, health and social services are privatized, as in Portugal or Greece. What is practiced here is the expropriation of national property. I don't even want to know how much criminally gained capital has been invested in Greece, Spain or Portugal.”	24 May 2014	Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (German Business News)

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References

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