Christian Klammer was once a shoe retailer in Starnberg, he called his shop “Schuhtingstar”. It is now again evident that there is hardly anything too crude for him when it comes to naming it. Klammer founded an institution that he calls the “Hannah Arendt Academy”. Arendt, of all people. That Jewish intellectual and freethinker, without whom the 20th century would hardly be understood, has chosen Klammer as the namesake for its online further education offer, which wants to oppose the “hygiene regime” – so it says on the academy website. There is also a contact address in Starnberg.
The so-called academy wants to offer high school graduates a Studium Generale, a virtual place where “regardless of vaccination status and political attitudes can really be studied freely”, for everyone “who no longer wants to submit to the system”. These are the words used to advertise the facility in a Telegram group. According to experts, the lecturers that the academy lists on its website are also very close to conspiracy ideologies. A kind of lateral thinker university is said to have emerged in the middle of Starnberg. What is it?
“Studying without vaccination, without gender and nonsensical political correctness”
The academy’s website is currently not accessible; according to the Anonymus Germany network, it has been hacked. One has to search web archives to find a version of the online presence from October 2021. Under a black and white photograph of the eponymous philosopher is a note that the orientation semester at the Hannah Arendt Academy should cost 150 euros. Christian Klammer is named as a contact, who introduces the academy as a registered association in YouTube videos. In a self-description from October it says: “The Corona generation faces an uncertain future – especially when attending a university is made difficult by the hurdles of the hygiene regime German universities don’t stop. ” It continues in a similar tone – not explicitly denying Corona, but clearly tendentious. The circles in which the project is touted also suggest a milieu that wants to distance itself from the social consensus.
For example with Rowena J. The woman from the Allgäu runs a Telegram channel, is an activist of the lateral thinking movement “Parents Stand Up” and recently tried to found a “free, natural school”. She advertises the Starnberg Academy with the words: “Studying without vaccinations, without gender and nonsensical political correctness”.
The social psychologist Pia Lamberty is the managing director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy and has been researching why people believe in conspiracies for years. She also looked at the pages of the Starnberg Academy and says: “Whether it’s AIDS denial, coronavirus or dissemination of 9/11 conspiracy narratives – many of the lecturers presented have already attracted attention in the past at least for having spread conspiracy-ideological whispers or for being close to right-wing populist currents So if you look at the people who will teach there, you can see pretty quickly what is meant here by freedom of science. ” Lamberty classifies it as problematic that scientific freedom is instrumentalized and presented in abbreviated form on the website.
Academy founder Christian Klammer does not respond to telephone or written inquiries. He is usually very informative about his academy. In a video from October he speaks to Andreas Popp, who talks about the “Great Reset”, a battle term used by conspiracy ideologues, and a necessary “educational revolution”. Klammer nods and says: “Nice that you mention that.” He wanted to convey more media skills and political education with his general studies, he wanted to “blow away” blinders. He tells in the video that as the father of two daughters aged 18 and 19, who have now graduated from high school in the Corona year, he is “directly affected”. What he means: At Munich universities, the 3-G rule applies to students. For this reason he created an alternative offer.
The magazine for political thinking, which publishes on the website with the name of Hannah Arendt, condemns Klammer’s initiative: “We advise all young people we address not to trap their intellectual energy, their thirst for knowledge, their time and, last but not least, their money in this trap We are appalled by the instrumentalization of Arendt’s thinking. ” The pool of lecturers can be assigned to the new right-wing milieu, including some well-known AfD supporters and conspiracy theorists who peddled their doctoral and professorial titles, according to the statement.
Starnberg District Administrator Stefan Frey (CSU), who recently initiated a round table on “Reich Citizens”, admits that he has never heard of the “Hannah Arendt Academy” in Starnberg. “So far there have been no indications from the police or the Office for the Protection of the Constitution that we have to deal with the issue in more detail here.” Frey believes: “We don’t have a solid, unconventional thinker scene in the district, at least that’s my impression.” When he watches vaccine-critical discussions on social media, he notices that “it is always the usual people” who create the mood, but they find little echo. The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not assess the lateral thinker and corona denier scene as an observation case. There are therefore no official findings on the case in Starnberg. Nevertheless, the authorities keep an eye on developments, because people from the Reich citizen scene have recently been involved in other teaching projects.