just three weeks Ago the “mirror”editor Claas Relotius was still at the very top. Because since he won the German reporter award in 2018 for the “best Reportage”. Now Claas Relotius is at the very bottom. Because of its history, “A children’s game,” which is about a Syrian boy who thinks he’s carrying because of a coup complicity in the war in his country, is conceived of “a lot, invented, lied. Quotes, places, scenes, a supposed man of flesh and blood. Fake,” writes Ullrich Fichtner, designated editor-in-chief of the “mirror”.

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for the features section Online and “media”.

F. A. Z.

And it is not the only forgery of the “mirror” documented. Nearly sixty texts published Relotius since 2011 in the magazine and “Spiegel Online”, a minimum of fourteen had at least faked in part, as the Journalist had, meanwhile, added.

On the trail of the “mirror” Relotius is delivering because he writes Ullrich Fichtner, “a fake history too much”. These flew on, because Relotius in the “mirror”Reporter Juan Moreno had a co-author, was the “nonsense”, raised the Alarm and “facts against fiction” collected to the report “Jaegers border,” about an American vigilante, which appeared in November in the “mirror”. In the beginning, writes Ullrich Fichtner, Moreno against walls, running in, and to distrust encountered. But, finally, had confirmed his suspicions, at the end of last week Claas Relotius fakes was.

It turns out that he had “invented entire passages” of the report freely, this only affects the story, “Jaeger’s border”, but many of the texts. Claas Relotius, it is said in “Spiegel Online”, have deceived “with malice aforethought, methodically and with a high criminal energy”. He said, “many of the protagonists never spoken to or he is talking about and he quoted”. His descriptions were based, according to “in other media, and film recordings. So, character created collages of real existing figures, which Relotius andichtete in addition, a fictitious biography. He also invented dialogues and quotes.“

He was looking for things together “and composed of the Parts and shards and scraps and Crumbs” as “a playful little God,” his “creatures,” writes Ullrich Fichtner. So Relotius all the hide – editors-in-chief, Department heads, colleagues, the documentation of the “mirror” and friends, the members of the Juries would have been “raptured about his lyrics bent”.

Relotius, one and a half years editor of the “mirror” has Written as a freelance writer before, also for others, for “Cicero”, “Financial Times Deutschland”, the “NZZ am Sonntag”, “daily mirror”, “taz”, “SZ-Magazin”, “world”, “world on Sunday”, “world week”, “time online” and for this publishing house, published “the Frankfurt General Sunday newspaper”. In the Sunday newspaper three texts of Relotius have been published. A, in October 2011, was by a Blogger who reported on the drug war in Mexico. In the second Text, in may 2013, it was about a young man named Shin Dong-hyuk who managed to escape from a North Korean concentration camp. Shin Dong-hyuk wrote a book with the title “escape from camp 14”. In July 2013, an Interview of Relotius with the former prison guard of Nelson Mandela, Christo Brand, who has also written a book (“My prisoner, my friend, Mandela appeared”). The authenticity of the Interviewees and of the blog, on the about the Mexican drug mafia, it was reported, is guaranteed. A note on fakes has not arisen so far, the facts of the case will be further reviewed.