Jörg Becker Retracts Again

Jörg Becker, retired professor of political science at the University of Marburg in Germany and representative of the party “Die Linke” (“The Left”) in the town parliament of Solingen,1)The party “Die Linke” is the follow-up party of the communist party SED that ruled until 1989 in the former “German Democratic Republic”. has already provided a whole series of cease-and-desist declarations subject to penalty for false allegations that he made in his biography of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann.

At the end of March 2016, Becker was obliged to provide five more cease-and-desist declarations. Among other things, these declarations concerned the false and defamatory claim that Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s doctoral dissertation was solely based on a newspaper clipping file that the Propaganda Ministry made available to her. Becker conceded that it cannot even be established that Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann ever saw this file.

In an attempt to construct a close relationship between Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and Joseph Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry, Becker also falsely claimed that she had collaborated with this Ministry in the so-called Nostradamus propaganda. When legally challenged for this claim, Becker was unable to produce the slightest proof for it.

Earlier, Becker had already been obliged to provide cease-and-desist declarations for the false and defamatory claims that Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann was nominated into the Berlin student leadership by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels himself and that there were no historical sources for the conflicts with the Propaganda Ministry she had as a journalist between 1941 and 1943.

Becker’s most recent cease-and-desist declarations also concern the false and defamatory claim that the U.S. imposed an “entry ban” on Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann after the war. To buttress this false claim, Becker fraudulently manipulated the wording of a telegram of the U.S. State Department signed by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Specifically, Becker substituted the word “Urtel” (= English abbreviation for “your telegram”) with “Urteil” (= German word for legal judgment), thereby suggesting that a court passed a judgment that banned Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann from traveling to the U.S. Becker was obliged to provide a cease-and-desist declaration subject to penalty for this false quotation.

A full account of the legal controversies over Becker’s biography may be found here.

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References
1 The party “Die Linke” is the follow-up party of the communist party SED that ruled until 1989 in the former “German Democratic Republic”.