SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL ONLINE have published around 60 texts in the past few years that Claas Relotius wrote or participated in. Short interviews are among them, but also large reports that attracted attention and for which Relotius was awarded prizes. Many have been falsified in substantial parts, the SPIEGEL had disclosed the fraud case in his own house a few weeks ago.
The SPIEGEL gets since the case became known many references from readers who draw attention to inconsistencies in the texts - for that expressly thank you! These hints help to work up the case.
The SPIEGEL is going through all the texts concerned again: some are thoroughly recalculated and verified, others are checked in random samples. Claas Relotius had already in December in conversation with his superiors widely forged and manipulated. Shortly before the turn of the year he had his lawyer in a press release publicly confirm once again that he has "misrepresented, falsified and added facts" for many years in his reports many times.
In January, his lawyer was sent a catalog of questions on the reviewed texts, with a request for comment. The lawyer said that Relotius "regrettably not able".
The re-verification of the texts does not replace the work-up by the commission set up by the publishing house and the editorial staff of internal and external experts who are to check the routines in the house and the security systems. The results of the commission will be published as soon as they are available; but that can take months.
Rather, it's about providing you, the reader, with an overview of the texts involved and the status of the review. Here is a list that will be updated in the coming weeks with insights on other Relotius texts:
1. "Hunter" - published in SPIEGEL No. 27/2018
Freely available at SPIEGEL +: "How an American survived three animal attacks: 'The thing that cracked was my skull'"
Verified again in January 2019
In the section "A Message and its History" Claas Relotius writes about the case of an American who survives the attack of a rattlesnake, a bear and a shark within three years. The protagonist Dylan McWilliams has many lyrics and some videos from other media, all of which appeared much earlier.
Two readers have reported to the SPIEGEL with references to possible inconsistencies in this text. The doubts expressed in the mails largely coincide with the results of their own fact check.
The portrayal of Relotius is in many ways consistent with other media reports and interview statements, but Relotius would not have had to interview McWilliams. However, there are details that suggest that they were invented to make the story more dramatic and spectacular. McWilliams himself did not respond to a request of the SPIEGEL so far.
When shark attack there are obviously strong exaggerations. So it is unlikely that McWilliams saw the "torn teeth" of the animal and hit it on the eye. These details do not appear in other reports of the case. Also unbelievable is that McWilliams, at the moment of the shark attack, was thinking about how unlikely it would be to be attacked successively by a snake, a bear and a shark. And that McWilliams himself later calculates these probabilities - and comes to exactly those values that the journal "National Geographic" has researched from several sources.
There are also strong exaggerations in the representation of the snakebite. Allegedly McWilliams wandered alone, lost consciousness after the bite, and then lay two days by the wayside. However, according to other media reports, he was not alone and not unconscious. He continued the hike after a short break and reported that he had been unwell for a while.
The description of the bear attack largely coincides with reports from other media. Only the alleged cracking of the skull is probably a dramatizing translation: McWilliams himself had described the sound in an interview as crunching ("crunching"), his skull was not broken.
2. "Map Elements" - published in SPIEGEL No. 16/2018
Freely available: Destiny: Why a court declared a living man dead
Verified again in January 2019
The text in the section "A message and its story" is based on news reports about a Romanian who was drawn to Turkey and was pronounced dead in his absence. The man returned to his hometown and tried to act against it, where he was not very successful.
The man who was officially dead, but in fact very much alive, really exists. Relotius admitted in December 2018 that he had not spoken to him. Also numerous small mistakes, disagreements and embellished details suggest that. It begins when the man in the Spiegel is called Constantin Reliu, but in reality his name is Reliu Constantin. This mistake has made a lot of Romanian media, in a personal conversation that would have noticed.
To reach Constantin is difficult, and he hardly speaks English. The SPIEGEL has therefore contacted the author of one of the first major stories about the case, the freelance journalist Kit Gillet, who according to Reliu Constantin has met with the New York Times. Gillet has spent two and a half hours talking to Constantin and has seen numerous documents, including from the court. Many details in the text of Relotius are doubtful, he says, so some are certainly wrong.
In this case, the court did not rule in the city of Bârlad but in Vaslui. The "cap from the article" Constantin may not have had on the head during the trial, headgear are set off before Romanian courts. The first names of Constantin's wife and daughter are probably wrong in Relotius: In a conversation with Gillet and in court documents the daughter is not Iasmina but Luiza.
Constantin went to Istanbul in 1992 to earn money for his small family. Every few months he returned home, spent time with his wife and daughter, gave them money and then went back to Turkey. So he told the journalist. At Relotius, everything is more dramatic: "Every six weeks, when he had saved enough, he drove 15 hours in the hold of a delivery van to Bârlad, where he gave his wife the money, kissed his daughter, then disappeared he's back in the car. " Why should he have hid on the ride, where at least he was working legally in Turkey?
As the relationship breaks down, it is unclear at Relotius: "Reliu can no longer tell exactly how it all broke up, when his wife fell in love with another, wealthier man, when in his anger he became a drinker." Gillet relates that Constantin talked for a long time and extensively about the difficulties in his marriage and about the fact that both partners went alien.
In the end, Constantin loses the battle in court for annulment of his own death, and "even a higher court does not give anyone who has gone much chances," they say. In fact, he had simply turned to the wrong court, according to the New York Times.
3. "Last rest" - published in SPIEGEL No. 01/2018
Freely accessible: "A message and its history: Last rest"
Verified again in January 2019
The text in the section "A Message and its History" is about a father who seeks his missing son in the Californian desert and his acquaintance and finally finds both dead almost three months later.
The SPIEGEL text differs from other media reports in numerous details. To tell more about the story published by many media, it would have been necessary to talk to Gilbert Orbeso, the father of the missing son. When Der Spiegel telephones Orbeso in January 2019, he can not remember ever talking to a reporter called Claas Relotius. The many details he is said to have told Relotius are invented by Orbeso.
So Relotius writes that after ten days the Rangers had stopped the daily search and told Orbeso that it no longer made any sense. In fact, they have, according to their own information, at least on the weekends on. There were also volunteers on duty, who accompanied Orbeso in the search. Orbeso told the SPIEGEL that he was never alone in the park looking for his son and girlfriend, but always in a small group.
He also had not quit his job, rented a motel near the park and searched every day for 80 days, as Relotius says. He stayed there for twelve days, says Orbeso, with his wife and daughter, after which he returned every weekend and searched the national park. He did not mark his way with "red ribbons, which he knotted after every kilometer to a cactus", but rely on the local people who had been traveling with him.
And so it was according to Orbeso also a group of "four men and a woman", who were traveling with him and found the two young people. However, according to Orbeso, the fairy-tale detail of the story is true: when they found them, they lay dead on the ground, hugging each other.
4. "Duds" - published in SPIEGEL No. 46/2015
Freely accessible: "A message and its story: Duds"
Verified again in January 2019
In the fall of 2015, Claas Relotius researched the story of Kathryn Rawlin's from Atherstone, Warwickshire, who for many years had a vase in her apartment that was supposed to have been a World War I grenade.
The core of the text is correct, there was the used as a vase grenade. Relotius actually had contact with Kathryn Rawlin via e-mail and also had a short phone call with her, she confirmed to the SPIEGEL. Obviously, Relotius has copied many of the details of his story from British newspapers and selected the most dramatic ones. At the request of SPIEGEL Rawlins read the text again using a translation program. Their conclusion: Relotius' presentation contains the same detail errors as the texts of other newspapers.
The crucial mistake was the claim that the grenade had been sharp when Rawlins contacted the police. British newspapers apparently falsely claimed that Relotius had accepted this claim unchecked.
5. "Loss" - published in SPIEGEL No. 41/2015
Freely accessible: "A message and its history: loss"
Verified again in December 2018
The text, published in the section "A message and its history", is about a young Syrian who finds a passbook on a walk in the town of Alsdorf near Aachen. It contained two 500-euro bills. The refugee had imagined what he could do with so much money, says Relotius. But then the young man had gone to the police and have given passbook and money. When the owner reported, the refugee had even refused the finder's reward - in Syria, as Relotius quotes him, be honest, "to be a good and just man".
The core of this fairytale story is true, as can be seen after another research: After the Aachen police had published a press release, reported numerous media about it, including the news agency dpa.
The local police confirmed the case on renewed demand of the SPIEGEL. The Syrian also confirmed to the local journalist Beatrix Oprée that he - together with his brother-in-law - spoke to a SPIEGEL reporter, but he could not quite remember whether it was Claas Relotius. The two of them reread the article thoroughly and told journalist Oprée that, aside from decorating details that are not always precisely described, they could find nothing wrong with them at the heart of the story.
Here you can read in detail what the SPIEGEL researched in December 2018.
6. "Wet" - published in SPIEGEL No. 49/2018
Freely available on SPIEGEL +: "Climate change scenarios: London, Paris and Poland have gone under"
Verified again in January 2019
For the cover story of the World Climate Summit in Katowice, eight SPIEGEL reporters traveled to climatologists and visited places affected by sea-level rise. Claas Relotius has written central parts of the text, including the entry, a passage in the front and the end. Relotius reports accordingly from the island state Kiribati, which lies in the South Pacific and threatens to sink in the sea. The text passages consist of descriptions of the situation on the spot and statements by the protagonist Ioane Teitiota.
The person Teitiota exists, but there are great doubts as to whether Relotius actually spoke to the protagonist. He was obviously not in Kiribati. According to the flight bookings, Relotius flew to Los Angeles on July 10, 2018 as planned, but did not take the booked onward flight to Kiribati. The motel booking for Kiribati had canceled Relotius by mail in the short term, there was also no direct contact with him at that time. On 19 July he flew back from Los Angeles to Hamburg, the SPIEGEL accounting is no travel expenses from Kiribati before, even from a later date.
The information appearing in his passages could probably have been researched without being there. Doubts about staying in Kiribati also arouse several facts in the text that have proved to be wrong or implausible during the subsequent check.
The protagonist Teitiota had tried from 2013 to 2015, as a climate refugee in New Zealand to obtain asylum, but failed and had to return to Kiribati. From this time, there is a detailed report on foreignpolicy.com and a BBC story. Due to a lack of contact details, it was not possible to ask Teitiota about possible meetings with Relotius.
Among other things, Relotius claims in the text that the three places London, Poland and Paris on the atoll Kiritimati are flooded and "as good as empty". However, only Paris was abandoned as a settlement - Poland and London are still inhabited. London is with almost 2000 inhabitants even the second largest city of the atoll.
Even the statement in the closing section of the text that Teitiota "sued the United Nations" from his hut, is apparently wrong. Teitiota's lawyer asked the UNHCR for assistance in 2015 to prevent deportation from New Zealand. A lawsuit against the UN therefore seems hardly plausible. Moreover, such a lawsuit would have long since appeared in the media. But since the end of 2015 there are no more media reports about Teitiota.
There is also doubt about the depiction of a relatives visit right at the beginning of the text. For the visit Teitiota should have made an eight-day trip by ship, without first clarifying whether the relatives still live on the atoll. Also incorrect is the description of the hut of Teitiota. Photos of the BBC show a brick house and not the wooden board and bamboo shingles described in the text, which would be very unusual for Kiribati anyway. There, palm wood and coconut bast or palm leaves are the preferred material.
7. "Jaegers Grenze" - published in SPIEGEL No. 48/2018
Freely accessible on SPIEGEL +: "vigilante against refugees: Jaeger's border"
Verified again in December 2018 and January 2019
The reportage "Jaegers Grenze" tells a story from two sides of the border between Mexico and the USA. In the south, Honduras Aleyda Milla and her daughter are traveling through Mexico in a big trek to reach the USA. In the north, American Chris Jaeger and five other armed US citizens are waiting in Arizona to stop people like Milla from crossing the border . The Mexican part of the reportage was done by Juan Moreno, the American Claas Relotius.
Through this text Relotius is unmasked thanks to the obstinacy of Moreno as a counterfeiter. Relotius never met the vigilantes and admitted in a conversation in December 2018 far-reaching falsifications in the text. Obviously, he has taken over large parts of other reports and documentary films, others he has come up with.
That's what the members of the vigilante at Relotius Jaeger, Pain, Ghost, Spartan, Luger and Nailer. The first four of these names he apparently took over from an older reportage in the magazine "Mother Jones"; Nailer is among others in a reportage of the "New York Times" before. Luger seems to have been invented by Relotius.
In SPIEGEL also photos of Jaeger and Nailer appeared - all pictures of the vigilantes made the photographer Johnny Milano. At the end of 2016, the "New York Times" also illustrated its reportage with photos from Milano's series. However, Relotius' Chris Jaeger is named Chris Maloof in the same picture in The New York Times. That was also noticeable in the SPIEGEL. But Relotius said that Jaeger did not want to be recognized in the US - he had told him personally. That's wrong. The clear name of Nailer, Tim Foley, is known from the Milano-image as well as from other media, but does not appear in the SPIEGEL.
The figure Spartan has taken over Relotius. The director of the documentary "Borderland Blues" of 2016, Gudrun Gruber, wrote the SPIEGEL that Spartan was not, as claimed by Relotius, 64 years old, but between 35 and 40. Accordingly, he could not serve in Vietnam, but he was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The vigilantes also contradicts the final paragraph of the story: "Jaeger squints in the darkness, the rifle is on his shoulder, he has no goal, he can not see anything, and at some point he expresses," it says. During the investigation, a spokesman for the vigilantes said that they would never shoot because that was not allowed.
While working on the text, Relotius' co-author Juan Moreno became skeptical: Relotius did not want to take a photographer with them and claimed that the vigilante did not want to be photographed. Moreno considered this implausible, because actually the vigilante is not public-shy. He had already seen Foley in an Oscar-nominated documentary.
Moreno reported his doubts to the SPIEGEL. When Relotius was confronted with it, he defended himself. Moreno did some research on his own - and finally proved that Relotius had never met the protagonists. Here you can read a text about the disarming of Relotius and see an interview with Juan Moreno here.
8. "Does not evil, if you let it go, come back some day?" - published in SPIEGEL No. 39/2018
Freely available on SPIEGEL +: "The last survivor of the 'White Rose' in the interview: 'We had no idea how alone we were' '
Verified again in December 2018
For a SPIEGEL conversation with Traute Lafrenz, the last White Rose survivor, Claas Relotius flew to the United States in August 2018, where he met the 99-year-old at her home in South Carolina - this visit is provable, too the photo of Lafrenz on her terrace made Relotius. In the text alternate interview passages and descriptions as well as historical classification.
The interview essentially contains counterfeits: these include several statements that have not fallen so well. The circumstances of the interview, Relotius has apparently misrepresented. Already in the third answer, the Spiegel reporter Lafrenz says: "In an American newspaper, I have seen recent photos from Germany - I was very cold." It should be about pictures of Germans who show the Hitler salute - as in the incidents in Chemnitz end of August 2018. On telephone demand of SPIEGEL in December 2018 Lafrenz said that she had not seen such photos and therefore not talked to Relotius about it ,
Unlike in Germany, it is unusual in the US for interviews to be authorized once again by the interlocutors before publication. Even later, Lafrenz has apparently never read the SPIEGEL conversation accurately. When asked, she distanced herself from the interview: In several places, it was not her words. So she denies to have called her former classmate Helmut Schmidt in the early eighties "Revolverschnauze". She never used that expression to Schmidt. However, Lafrenz uses the term in a video-recorded interview with the "Bild" newspaper when she talks about Schmidt.
Also from "secret meetings" of the students, which Lafrenz allegedly mentioned in the interview, she has not spoken to her own statement - her class teacher Erna Stahl from the later environment of the "White Rose" have organized normal reading evenings, no "secret meetings," says Lafrenz.
SPIEGEL also contacted Lafrenz's daughter-in-law, who was present at the meeting with Relotius, last December. She says that several passages about the circumstances of the interview were invented: The reporter did not spend five hours with Lafrenz, as SPIEGEL said, the interview lasted no more than an hour, in total Relotius had not stayed longer than two hours. The daughter-in-law also said that Relotius had recorded the conversation with his mobile phone - he himself told the Spiegel in December 2018 that there was no recording of the conversation with Lafrenz. Here you can read in detail what the SPIEGEL has done so far.
9. "German on probation" - published in SPIEGEL No. 31/2018
Freely accessible on SPIEGEL +: "Racism: German on probation"
Verified again in January 2019
The title story of 28 July 2018 explores the question of how people who were born and grew up as children of migrants in Germany and who for decades campaigned for an open society - and have always had and are struggling with racism. To the 14 short interviews Claas Relotius has delivered three, one with Michel Abdollahi, one with Kübra Gümüsay and one with Oliver Polak.
These three texts contain no falsifications. The three interlocutors were sent the interviews before going to print and they authorized them.
10. "Sorry" - published in SPIEGEL No. 28/2018
Freely accessible on SPIEGEL +: "Reconstruction of the descent of rescue ship 'Lifeline': The captain is crying"
Verified again in January 2019
Under the text "Sorry" about the German rescue ship "Lifeline", whose captain in the Mediterranean took 234 refugees on board and for days in vain tried to bring the people ashore, stands next to three other names and Claas Relotius as an author. In this case, Relotius was not on his own, but has just summarized the parts that were researched by the other reporters in the Hamburg editorial to a text.
11. "A child's play" - published in SPIEGEL No. 26/2018
Freely accessible on SPIEGEL +: "'By God, I should never have written that': the boy with whom the Syrian war began"
Verified again in January 2019
In the issue of June 23, 2018 Relotius tells in the form of a report the story of the Syrian boy Mouawiya Syasneh, who allegedly insulted Syrian President Assad as a 13-year-old with a graffiti. The boy was celebrated as a hero, it is said in the story - but later "demonized" as the one who triggered the Syrian war. He communicated with the boy on a mobile phone, Relotius writes in his story. He was able to see Mouawiya via the phone's camera, so the impressions from the city of Daraa came about.
Relotius writes: "As a journalist, you can not get into Daraa anymore, you can not meet Mouawiya in person, but you can drive to the border with Syria, you can start from the Jordanian desert just five kilometers away from the front And you can talk to Mouawiya for weeks on WhatsApp, with or without a camera, and you can join him through the last days of the war as if through a keyhole, trying to reconstruct his life story, which is closely stitched together the history of Syria. "
In addition to individual factual errors, this text obviously contains massive counterfeits. True, there is Mouawiya Syasneh. He was actually involved in the graffiti campaign in February 2011. However, the "tracking shots" through the devastated Syrian city of Daraa are invented, which Relotius acknowledged in December 2018. Also many biographical details are not correct; Relotius probably put it in Mouawiya's mouth. The attempt to distinguish between "invention", "factual errors" and "inadmissible dramatization" touches on a fundamental problem: Numerous details from a civil war country are not beyond doubt verifiable.
An invention is, for example, the claim that the camera of Mouawiya's cell phone was always on and went out. This is also the dramaturgical concept of history fiction.
At least arbitrary is the assertion that a certain day of reportage plays on the "2601rd day in the war". Because the beginning of the civil war can not be fixed on a date exactly, there can be no 2601th day.
A dramatization, for example, seems to be the claim that Mouawiya had his cell phone "turned on day and night" (at a certain time). This seems unlikely, but can not be verified beyond doubt.
It is certain that the mobile phone conversations with Mouawiya Syasneh did not take place in this form. Although there is a short chat of the two, but this contains few facts. The contact was made via an Arabic-speaking colleague, with whom Relotius had started the research together. There was also a phone call with the boy, in the presence of the colleague. At some point, however, Relotius continued to work alone.
Relotius's counterfeits in this story are evidently based on reports from other media, such as a film that Al Jazeera has published in English. However, he obviously changes and dramatizes facts found in numerous places and adds inventions.
12. "Angel of Death" - published in SPIEGEL No: 50/2017
Freely accessible: "Power: angel of death"
Verified again in December 2018 and January 2019
The text about 17-year-old American Michelle Carter, who encouraged her acquaintance Conrad Roy with suicide text messages, appeared on December 9, 2017.
This article most likely contains fakes. The case Carter / Roy is described in detail in many US media, the verdict is public, there are a large number of sources on the subject. Relotius has obviously used these sources. The text is full of verifiable facts, with numerous samples the facts could be verified on the basis of the sources.
On the other hand, the visit by Relotius to the parents of Michelle Carter in Plainville, Massachusetts, is probably fake. Relotius describes in detail how the Carter's home looks like, how his parents talk to him about her daughter's life and hobbies and how they even lead him to Michelle's room. The lawyer of the parents of Michelle Carter informed the SPIEGEL on demand in January 2019 that they did not give an interview to Relotius.
In addition, the following information from Relotius' article remains questionable: "In May 2014, two months before Conrad Roy's suicide, documenting referral documents, Michelle Carter was treated for four weeks in a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, for impulse control disorders." According to sources Michelle Carter went to the clinic only in June to be treated for another illness.
13. "The man of room 402" - published in SPIEGEL No. 49/2017
Freely accessible: "Crime: The incredible story of the bombing of Borussia Dortmund"
Verified again in January 2019
In December 2017, the SPIEGEL published a text about the attack on the team bus of Borussia Dortmund in April 2017. A team of seven editors reconstructed the case through talks, publications and court records, one of the authors was Claas Relotius.
This text was apparently not manipulated by Relotius. His subcontracting consisted mainly of the editing of published texts and a conversation with the former team manager of Borussia Dortmund, Fritz Lünschermann. Almost all descriptions in the relevant passages, including the seating arrangement in the bus, are covered by other sources. Fritz Lünschermann also confirmed a conversation with Relotius and the correctness of the quotation attributed to him.
14. "Touchdown" - published in SPIEGEL No. 44/2017
Freely accessible: "Discrimination: Touchdown"
Verified again in December 2018 and January 2019
Claas Relotius wrote for SPIEGEL a story about the American football player Colin Kaepernick, who did not rise in knelt to protest against racism in the US for the national anthem before the game began. Contributing parts of the story are an appointment Kaepernicks in a school in East Harlem and a telephone conversation, which had wanted to have led Relotius with Kaepernick's parents.
The date in the New York School was indeed, but Relotius probably did not participate in the current findings. And the conversation with his parents, as Relotius himself admitted in December after his exposure to intense inquiries, never took place.
The text must therefore be widely referred to as counterfeiting. "There is no basis," said Kaepernick's lawyer in December on a request from SPIEGEL. This is particularly evident in passages in which Relotius comes up with details from the alleged telephone conversation: "Sometimes crying, sometimes laughing," Kaepernick's mother told her son's story, it says, for example, in his text. There are published statements of the parents in other media, in which Relotius has apparently used. Some of these representations are sometimes pointed, but with a similar tendency in Relotius again. For other citations of parents and other persons in the text, there is no evidence. Whether they are invented can hardly be verified.
There are only a few sources available from the high school date. A contradiction arises in the number of participants: Relotius writes of "three dozen black girls and boys," the US magazine "Sports Illustrated" of "more than 100" students. Media representatives were not allowed, according to Sports Illustrated. Nevertheless, Relotius describes detailed and detailed discussions that Kaepernick is said to have had in the school gym with children. Some of this sounds unbelievable, such as the portrayal of a supposedly 14-year-old girl who never goes shopping in the southern districts of New York because white shopkeepers did not let a Bronx child into their business. Where Relotius has the concrete accounts of the appointment remains unclear. So far, they can not be substantiated or refuted.
The subsequent examination also revealed several factual errors that would have been relatively easy to detect before the text was printed. Thus, another football player mentioned in the text who complains about racism experiences is mistakenly located in the same player position as Kaepernick: quarterback, "one of the best ever," the text says.
In fact, Michael Bennett played in the then called by Relotius former team as a defender. Kaepernick's friend Nessa Diab is not born in Egypt, as claimed in the text, but in California.
At least distorting is the presentation in the text, under a photo of his visit to Ghana Kaepernicks Facebook page would have "many Americans" written, he looks like a monkey. In fact, an analysis of around 200 comments under this picture revealed that about 90 percent of the responses were positive, but at least the word ape was not found in this selection.
15. "Home Run" - published in SPIEGEL No. 34/2017
Freely accessible: "He was a plumber and loved baseball: Last honor - off to the stadium"
Verified again in January 2019
The text is about a New York baseball fan named Thomas McDonald, who reports that he had scattered and washed down the ashes of his deceased friend in stadium toilets for years. In May 2017 numerous reports were published in US and German media.
Claas Relotius took up the issue again months later under the SPIEGEL rubric "A Message and its History" - and obviously dramatized by some fictitious additional details.
The basic version of the story is well documented: McDonald had talked to a number of journalists about it in 2017 and sometimes gave extensive interviews. In the text Relotius writes that he had phoned McDonald. McDonald can not remember this on demand in January 2019, but he is sure that he did not give Relotius a detailed interview. The text also contains serious contradictions and many blank additions to other reports and interviews by McDonald.
For example, Relotius, the nickname of McDonald's friend, Roy Riegel, was "leek," and he left no family at his death. In fact, the nickname was "Fess" (after actor Fess Parker), and his mother and two brothers still live. None of the quotes from the SPIEGEL text, which has not already been printed in other media, McDonald could confirm.
Furthermore, the text contains many recognizable errors and misrepresentations. Relotius writes that McDonald saw a total of 2881 games of the Mets, but he himself assumes no more than 1,200. McDonald also said he did not set up a fan club called "Mets Underground" with Riegels, and he would also scatter his friend's ashes at the New York Yankees stadium - it's not true that he hates the Yankees and therefore does not go to the stadium would. McDonald told SPIEGEL, "Baseball is baseball."
McDonalds told the "New York Times" that the "ritual" described by Relotius, before the ashes wash down, was subtracted twice, "to clear the way for Roy." However, he never tried to pray a Lord's Prayer and he does not whisper "Farewell," McDonald told SPIEGEL. Mostly he simply said, "Here you go, buddy".
16. "In a small town" - published in SPIEGEL No. 13/2017
Was accessible here: "In a small town"
Verified again in December 2018
In January 2017 Claas Relotius traveled to the small town of Fergus Falls in the US state of Minnesota. He spent nearly five weeks writing a reportage on how people in rural America look at the world in general and Donald Trump and the US in particular.
In the story, which appeared on 25 March 2017 in SPIEGEL, almost nothing is true - the biographies of the main characters are made up and the facts are usually wrong.
A non-eligible Mexican waitress turns Relotius into a Trump-electing restaurant owner with kidney disease - her son's name in the story is "Israel" and is bullied at school. In reality, his name is Pablo, and Relotius only briefly addressed him to photograph him.
The boy called Relotius later as a reason why the story should not appear on SPIEGEL ONLINE. In an e-mail, the then-reporter asks his colleagues to remove the text from the page, "since he trades in large part with a Mexican boy being bullied at his US high school." I was only allowed to do so under the premise Write that the story will not be available online for people in his place or school. "
In fact, residents of Fergus Falls had found the text - but it was not, as Relotius writes, "actually a big problem for this boy," but for the author. For those concerned researched after Relotius and published, after the SPIEGEL had reported on Relotius' forgeries, a text about the mistakes. A Spiegel correspondent drove in December after the announcement of the fake in the place to make himself a picture - and to apologize to the residents in the name of SPIEGEL. You can read his text here.
17. "angry white man" - published in SPIEGEL no. 46/2016
Freely available: "After the election: angry white man"
Verified again in January 2019
On the 12th of November an article was published on the SPIEGEL cover story about the election victory of Donald Trump, in which several authors collected reactions and moods of people in Germany. The question was, "Is there the frustrated citizen who helped Trump win, even in Germany?" The answer of the text: "Sure, you just have to go out on the street and listen."
Claas Relotius has delivered a contribution from a Dortmund pub. The headline read: "Who else?" It's a conversation between pubs operators Anke F., 59, and Norbert F., 65. As far as the conversation contains verifiable facts, these are correct. But whether this conversation has ever existed and whether an Anke and a Norbert F. operated a pub in Dortmund at the time (the photo printed here shows only a beer glass and an ashtray), could not be determined so far.
18. "King's children" - published in SPIEGEL No. 28/2016
Freely accessible: "Fates: King's children"
Verified again in January 2019
The article on the Syrian children Ahmed and Alin, who are said to be 12 and 13 years old and siblings, was released on 9 July 2016. In the text of Relotius, the parents in Syria have died, the children fled and work in Turkey now, separated, as a scrap collector and seamstress in Anatolia. The testimony they give is, Relotius writes in the text, "as vividly and truly as only children can tell."
This text clearly contains counterfeits. Occupied is the existence of the boy Ahmed. A photographer accompanied Relotius talking to him. However, he has apparently missed a fictitious resume of Relotius, as witnessed by the photographer, who continues to be in contact with Ahmed's family. Not proven is the existence of the girl Alin, with whom Relotius alone wants to have spoken and on whose alleged stories the story is based in large parts.
What would have made SPIEGEL even before publication suspicious, are contradictions and inconsistencies that are contained in the text, for example, these passages:
- The claim in the text that the war had come to Aleppo to the two children on a "summer day two years ago" is highly questionable. Aleppo has been fiercely fought over since the summer of 2012 between government forces and rebels. This heavy weapons, including tanks and fighter aircraft, were used. The implicit assertion of Relotius, the two children would have heard of these struggles from summer 2012, seems unbelievable.
- Presumably, the passage is conceived, in which the children pass daily on houses walls, on which hang "big, Arabian posters": "The 'Islamic State' leaves them sticking, attracts with pocket money and food, with a 'big family', who takes care of young people. " The IS did not even stick such posters in its own territory, there are no reports in the press about it, although the fact as such would have been spectacular.
- Also questionable is the claim that children have harvested watermelons in Turkey after their arrival, "ten hours a day, seven days a week". As the main harvesting time for melons in Turkey is from May to September, the question arises as to whether the children arrived in Turkey in time to help with the harvest.
Relotius has been soliciting donations for readers who have been touched and affected by the children's fate and have therefore turned to the editors. (Read more here.)
In December, Relotius admitted through his law firm that the sibling couple described was an illusion. He stated that the donations had not been collected and not intended. Rather, he had the privately collected at SPIEGEL readers money - it is about 7000 € - from their own resources then increased to 9000 euros and used for another good cause.
The Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe confirmed on request the receipt of a donation from Relotius in the amount of 9000 Euro. She was referred in October 2016, said a spokeswoman. The money was used in a timely manner. It has benefited a community center in northern Iraq, which cares for displaced children from Iraq and Syria.
19. "Number 440" - published in SPIEGEL No. 15/2016
Freely accessible: "Innocent in Guantanamo: Number 440"
Verified again in December and January 2019
The report "Number 440" describes the life of the young Yemenite Mohammed Bwasir, who came to Guantanamo from Afghanistan in 2002 and was imprisoned there for 14 years without ever being charged with it. In January 2016, inmate No. 440 was to be released and flown out to an East European country. But at the last moment he refused, because, it was said, he feared freedom in the foreign.
The narrative essence of the story is correct, but the text contains substantial amounts of counterfeiting, Relotius acknowledged in December 2018, giving back the prizes awarded to him for this text. In addition, his article contains a number of factual errors.
Relotius tells the story of a "dreamer" who leaves Yemen in 2001 at the age of 19 "in search of meaning in his life" to move to his brother Salih, who was studying in Afghanistan at that time. Bwasir then taught children there in an orphanage. According to Relotius, in November 2001 - "two months after the towers fell in New York" - he is suddenly knocked down and only wakes up in Masar-i-Sharif, "on the concrete floor of a barracks". He is suspected of being a Qaeda terrorist, a "threat to America." Tortured by his tormentors, he finally confesses "everything they ask of him" and is kidnapped as an "enemy fighter" to Guantanamo in Cuba. There he is finally put in the cage in the notorious Camp X-Ray, he also comes in solitary confinement, is tortured, goes on a hunger strike and is force-fed.
In files of the US Department of Defense, which were published on Wikileaks ("Guantanamo Files") in April 2011 by SPIEGEL, there is a nine-page dossier on Bwasir, but with a different biography. Relotius writes, "The SECRET-NOFORN-22331027 file has a different story about Mohammed Bwasir's life in precise, militarily accurate sentences." From what he has researched about Bwasir, "not a word" in the documents of the Pentagon. In fact, Relotius bases his account on reports and conversations that were allegedly leaked to him, but later he could not prove.
A contradiction: Bwasir arrived according to the Pentagon Act in early May 2002 in Guantanamo, according to Relotius but already in February. This is also important for the story of the reporter because it decides if Bwasir was even detained in Camp X-Ray, the infamous cages. Camp X-Ray was closed at the end of April 2002.
Beyond the counterfeits, the article also contains verifiable factual errors and contradictions, which some readers have pointed out. So it is questionable in which language the newly arrived in Afghanistan Bwasir has taught the children. In Afghanistan, Pashtu and Dari, in Yemen, Arabic is spoken.
Also the number of the secret Pentagon report to Bwasir is wrong indicated, it is correct 20331027.
The text states the age of Bwazir in January 2016 at 35. This is in contradiction to other passages in the text, according to which he must be more than a year younger: "It is the year 2001, Mohammed Bwasir is 19 years old."
About Camp Delta Relotius writes: "There is no Koran, no carpet to pray". In reality, however, the Koran is part of the basic equipment there, and those who should not have one can borrow it from the library.
For the research was then agreed that Relotius travels to Guantanamo, visits the camp and speaks there with eyewitnesses there. Whether he did this is still unclear. He also wants to talk to Bwasir's brother in Yemen, several former Guantanamo inmates, and Bwasir's lawyer. Whether he did this is also not clear.
20. "Tense" - published in SPIEGEL 51/2015
Freely accessible: "Moods: Tense"
Verified again in January 2019
In December 2015 the SPIEGEL was published with the title story "The distraught nation", it was about the question of how the Germans deal with the influx of refugees. At that time eleven reporters traveled across Germany to ask for a mood and asked the question: "What do Germans think and say about the consequences of the influx of refugees?" Three of a total of 19 contributions were made by Relotius.
The supplies are only partially verifiable, in one case there are minor factual errors. Because the question is delicate and the interviewees should talk openly, the editors have changed the names of many interlocutors and also not mentioned the place of residence, it is also under the text.
A piece by Relotius is a short interview with the mother of an eight-year-old child. Again, the name is changed, the place of residence is not mentioned. It is about problems in the elementary school, in the center of which the mother sees the newly arrived refugees. Verifiable facts are not mentioned, whether the conversation took place at all, can not yet be verified, the real name was already unrecognizable in the manuscript.
The second article is about a man who plays football with refugees. Again the name is changed and the place is not named.
The third article is about the small town of Sumte in Lower Saxony, quoting Reinhard Schlemmer, "future neighbor of several hundred refugees". Schlemmer, as Relotius describes it in the entrance scene, "stands on a ladder in front of his house, he installs" motion detectors and floodlights for the garden "just in time." On demand, Schlemmer describes the scene as "nonsense", he does not have that do it yourself, let it be done.
Correctly, however, is the description of Sumtes as a "sleepy settlement", where there is "not even a pub". The report of a "meeting of citizens in the tool shed of the fire station" was also correctly reproduced, as Schlemmer's then views: "Schlemmer does not understand what refugees from Syria or Afghanistan should here."
Whether Relotius really was there at the time and whether he spoke to him on this occasion, Schlemmer can not remember - there were a lot of journalists in Sumte back then. It is unclear why Relotius Schlemmer called "pensioner", he was the former mayor of the place. As nonsense Schlemmer called the final sentence: Schlemmer should have worried therefore at the arrival of the refugees to the water pipes. "Not that soon only drops will come out of the shower." He never said that, and he regards such a concern purely as a matter of fact unfounded.
21. "World class with a heart" - published in SPIEGEL No. 40/2015
Freely accessible: "Citizenship: world class with heart"
Verified again in January 2019
On September 26, 2015, SPIEGEL published an article about the city of Munich, written by six authors, one of which was Claas Relotius. The paragraphs supplied by Relotius could be verified, except for the closing quote of a Grünwald landlady.
22. "Homestory: Jedi-Radler" - published in SPIEGEL No. 19/2015
Freely accessible: "Homestory: Jedi-Radler"
Verified again in January 2019
In the "Homestory" section, the SPIEGEL published a text in May 2015 in which Claas Relotius describes how he wants to buy a new bike and is surprised by the development in the bicycle market. In the "Homestory" format, SPIEGEL editors report on their own lives and personal experiences, usually with mild self-irony. The experiences are therefore hardly verifiable for the SPIEGEL in hindsight.
The text describes an exaggerated world of bicycle enthusiasts, where bicycles are more a lifestyle accessory than a means of transportation. This world is there, some inaccuracies in the text may be due to the fact that the author just rediscovered this aspect of bicycles. Thus, the term "Urban Bikes" is not generally representative of wheels with finger-thick tires. Also, the differences between "singlespeed" (bikes without gears) and "fixies" (wheels with a rigid gear) are reproduced in the text simplified.
And the Tour de France is more about sprinting than sprinting, as Relotius puts it.
23. "Home to hell" - published in SPIEGEL No. 32/2014
Was accessible here: "Crime: Home to hell"
Verified in January 2019
The text, which appeared in August 2014, is about an institution for hard-to-reach youth in Marianna, Florida, Florida School for Boys. In the institution, which was opened in 1900, children and young people were tortured, beaten and tortured by the guards for decades. In 2011, they were closed. Former inmates have teamed up as "White House Boys" about ten years ago (named after a white house on the grounds where the boys were tormented), publishing their stories of suffering, and have been fighting to make sure that does not happen again. In the article "Home to hell" accompanies Claas Relotius one who has experienced this horror himself more than 50 years ago.
The text obviously contains numerous falsifications, exaggerations and dramatizations. Relotius was actually there and spent a few days with Jerry Cooper, the protagonist of his story. At the request of SPIEGEL, he was initially surprised and then angry at the content: Despite repeated requests Relotius had never sent him an English translation of the article.
The text begins with an exaggeration: Who did not eat, had to lick the food from the ground, writes Relotius. This chicane did not exist, according to Cooper.
"Above the old entrance gate still hangs the big, rusty sign with the reminders that awaited every boy who came to the asylum of Marianna: 'Thou shalt no longer be a danger to society.' 'You should learn to abide by rules.' 'You should work to become an upright and good person.' "So Relotius introduces the prison grounds, many readers may have thought thereby to the entrance of a concentration camp. In reality, according to Cooper, this sign never existed. Also, the "street vendors", the alleged white-house antiques offer, "chairs, iron chains, alleged torture theaters, which come from the home and the foreigners are to serve as scary souvenirs," there is therefore not. In the middle of the village there is a shop called "White House Antiques".
A poignant scene in which Relotius goes with Cooper to the cemetery on the grounds, on the search for secretly buried cattle, has probably not taken place, the access was shut off.
The text also describes in detail how the boy was tortured by the guards in June 1961. Since the 74-year-old man has published his own story, it is easy to compare how much the SPIEGEL text exaggerates. The rape mentioned by Relotius never happened, according to Cooper.
Relotius describes Cooper's reminiscence of the past through a television report on another institution and then looking for and finding fellow sufferers. The men are named by name, the traumas suffered described in detail - Cooper, however, has never heard of them. And he did not dream of his worst tormentor, as described in detail in the article.
Cooper is also angry about the obvious dramatization of another thing: To prove that his story is true, he has in 2009 to connect to a lie detector. Once, for three questions - and not "again and again," as the text says. And the question of how Relotius ends the story was never raised, according to Cooper: "Only once did the device look recognizable and display a lie, and Cooper was asked if he had processed what had happened in the home." He answered yes . "
24. "When murderers become caretakers" - appeared on SPIEGEL ONLINE on 19 April 2014
Freely accessible: "Alzheimer's Disease in US Prison: When Murderers become Carers"
Verified again in January 2019
In 2013, a long text by Claas Relotius about a California prison, where younger inmates take care of their inmates suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was published by the Swiss magazine "Reports". SPIEGEL ONLINE published a shorter text version in the spring of 2014 based on the same research.
The context of the text is correct: there is this program, and the prison, the California Men's Colony, has confirmed that Relotius actually spent an estimated eight hours there talking to the program's director, psychologist Cheryl Steed. With which detainees he has spoken exactly, can probably no longer reliably reconstruct. But at least it is certain that those described in this text were in prison at the time.
So far, other minor errors have been noticed. For example, the age of individual inmates does not match the presentation in a New York Times article that similarly reported the program in 2012; However, the authorities are not giving out exact personal data that could help with the review. The psychologist's office was on the ground floor, not on the second floor.
Other passages can no longer be tested, such as a scene in which a dementer prisoner paints a picture and the painted motif is described exactly.
25. "The men are to blame" - appeared on SPIEGEL ONLINE on 4 June 2013
Freely accessible: '' Before Midnight 'star Delpy:' The men are to blame '"
Verified in January 2019
In June 2013, the movie "Before Midnight" started in German cinemas. SPIEGEL ONLINE published an interview with the French actress Julie Delpy. The editors offered it to the former freelancer Claas Relotius.
Whether the conversation actually took place is unclear. "Before Midnight" was shown on February 11, 2013 in the competition of the Berlinale. The main actors Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke were on site and also gave interviews.
The interviews were mediated by a Munich PR agency commissioned by the film distributor Prokino to more than 30 journalists from Germany and Austria. On request, the agency said that Relotius had not been there. The lists with the journalists present are still available and have been checked by the agency according to their own information.
Theoretically, Relotius would have had the opportunity to speak to Delpy about the official channels and the PR agency, which would be unusual.
Without an audio file, it is difficult to verify the conversation. In this particular case, there are no answers from Delpy that are conspicuously implausible. Two of the answers are in contradiction to statements by her or her film partner Ethan Hawke and director Richard Linklater in the magazine Vanity Fair and the New York Times. So Relotius says in the beginning: "In France, one is first asked, what it was like to play topless, and in the US, the question is usually what it was like to shoot with Ethan Hawke." In an interview with the American magazine Vanity Fair, she said, "It's interesting that (meaning the topless scene) has caught the eye here (in the US), but nobody in France would ask me about it . "
26. "Beauty really pays off" - published on SPIEGEL ONLINE on November 29, 2011
Freely accessible: "Attractiveness at work: 'Beauty literally pays off'"
Verified again in January 2019
On November 29, 2011, an interview with the US economic researcher Daniel Hamermesh was published in the KarriereSPIEGEL, in which it was about whether attractive people in professional life have an easier time. Hamermesh has confirmed on request that the interview accurately reflects his statements.
27. "Who blogs, threatens the death" - published by SPIEGEL ONLINE on 14 November 2011
Freely accessible: "Drug War in Mexico: Who blogs, threatens the death"
Verified in January 2019
The text, which SPIEGEL ONLINE published in November 2011, is about bloggers who report anonymously about the Mexican drug war and are therefore threatened or murdered. The article is based mainly on statements by an anonymous blogger with the code name "Gerardo", who reported on the English-language blog "Borderland Beat" on antitrust crime in Mexico and therefore digitally threatened.
The statements of "Gerardo" quoted by Claas Relotius plausibly describe the general situation of the bloggers and the violence in Mexico, "Gerardo" also reports two specific threats, which he wants to have received by e-mail.
In a passage a police chief is quoted, to whom so far no contact could be made. In addition, Relotius writes about acts of violence against bloggers, journalists and politicians who correspond to the facts and has been reported in the Mexican or international media - the sources to which he refers, he has only partially stated.
The most controversial part of the text is the interview with "Gerardo". It can not be verified if Relotius actually questioned the blogger. There is a registered Borderland Beat as a reporter author with the alias "Gerardo", who also posted in the period 2010/2011 again and again posts on the site. Borderland beat bloggers / operators have at least occasionally given interviews in the past.
28. "Final cleaning" - published in SPIEGEL 18/2018
Freely accessible on SPIEGEL +: "17 years later: The worst hotel guest of all time finally says 'Sorry'"
Verified again in December and January 2019
Claas Relotius writes about the Canadian businessman Nick Burchill in the section "A story and its story" and how, 17 years after his visit to a star hotel in Victoria on the west coast of Canada, he apologizes for the "mess" that he had in his hotel room had left. The story includes a page.
About this text, Relotius said in December 2018 that he had not spoken to the protagonist Nick Burchill. SPIEGEL contacted Burchill in January 2019. He also assured that he was never in contact with Relotius. He had published his story himself - in an open letter via Facebook, which then found a big press echo. Burchill then received many calls from journalists around the world, but declined all interview requests except for a radio interview with the Canadian broadcaster CBC News from Nova Scotia. The SPIEGEL apparently had no request.
For the most part, the Relotius story is consistent with Burchill's personal accounts. However, the SPIEGEL text also contains some details and quotes that are neither taken from the wording of the Facebook letter nor the radio interview and apparently were invented by Relotius.
This list does not yet include all Relotius texts that have been published by SPIEGEL or SPIEGEL ONLINE. It will be updated as new information becomes available.
The articles written by Relotius remain - with a few exceptions, in which the persons concerned have asked for deletion - remain unchanged until a substantial clarification of the case, but with a reference in the archive, which is accessible online, also to make inquiries possible. We ask for hints to hinweise@spiegel.de.
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