Intransparency, third-party control, stolen idea: The striking children of the "Fridays For Future" movement, in particular on the net, strongly criticizes conspiracy theories and hatred. The Swedish student Greta Thunberg, initiator of the protests, has already learned that.
Now the AfD politician Beatrix von Storch accuses the German "Fridays For Future" activist "label fraud". "Where #FridaysForFurture [sic!] Is on it, is the Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation in it," she tweeted on Wednesday. "At the front there are children with posters, behind them the organized #Klimalobby collects the donations."
The AfD woman refers to allegations that a right blog has raised. It has examined links between "Fridays For Future" and "Plant for the Planet": a German-based entrepreneur foundation and "Club of Rome" Vice President Frithjof Finkbeiner. Among other things, the blog author claims donations for "Fridays For Future" went to the "Plant for the Planet" Foundation.
Jakob Blasel, a student from Schleswig-Holstein and one of the initiators of the student strike in northern Germany, answers in the SPIEGEL interview on the allegations - and is surprised that the author has not bothered to ask the students.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A right blog accuses "Fridays For Future", to be closely tied to "Plant for the Planet": Among other things, it is said donations were in truth to "Plant for the Planet".
Jakob Blasel: nonsense. The colleagues from "Plant for the Planet" have set up a sub-account for their donations with their bank. But "Plant for the Planet" does not support the money in this account. We do not even refund their bank charges. All the money that people donate to "Fridays for Future" also benefits "Fridays for Future". And we only pay money for proper billing.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The author of the blog post claims that "Plant for the Planet" as a non-profit organization must use all collected donations for their statutory purposes - or forward them to other non-profit organizations. So you should not pass on money to private individuals or loose associations of people, even if they carry out projects that fit the purpose of the nonprofit organizations.
Blasel: All donations that go to us are earmarked for "Fridays For Future". And this use corresponds to the statutory purpose of "Plant for the Planet": to promote nature conservation.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why does not "Fridays For Future" have their own account?
Blasel: "Fridays For Future" is a collaborative movement of young people fighting the climate crisis. We do not want to build so huge, bureaucratic structures with club founding, board elections, hierarchies and too much paperwork. We do not want to be an organization, but of course we want to be able to act. "Plant for the Planet" was kind enough to provide us with their structures. They lose money with us.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE: The author of the blog post criticizes that in the imprint of the "Fridays For Future" website a certain "Ronja Thein" as responsible is called - which does not live under the address given there.
Blasel: Ronja has been involved with "Fridays For Future" in Kiel for months. We can not publish your private address on the website. Tens of thousands of people call the page, not all are well-disposed. We have to protect Ronja. But Ronja is regularly found at the given address. Because "Fridays For Future" has its own space in the building. This is an event center where the "Fridays-For-Future" -location Kiel meets. You know, we have nothing to hide. And we would have liked to explain it all to the author of the blog post. But he never called us. Maybe he did not want to know it exactly.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The right-wing blog states that the idea of the school strike actually comes from "Plant for the Planet".
Blasel: Of course there used to be school strikes by individual people for climate protection. An acquaintance of us also went on strike in 2015. But it did not do much at the time. Our big school strikes of today with tens of thousands of participants are not inspired by "Plant for the Planet", but by Greta Thunberg.