Is it true that the head of the Government of Germany before taking the oath should sign a chancellor act in Washington?

On the Web, one can meet the mention of a secret agreement under which the union powers in 1949 allegedly imposed restrictions on the sovereignty of Germany for 150 years. It is alleged that each federal chancellor signed this act before the oath, recognizing the leadership of the United States, Great Britain and France. We figured out how likely the existence of such a document is.

Russian media also wrote about the chancellor act (for example, "Moscow Komsomolets"And the newspaper"Tomorrow"), And the historical encyclopedic project"Chronos", And bloggers in Livejournal And "Zen". In all these publications, the existence of such a document was not called into question and was given as evidence of the dependence of modern Germany on the “Anglo -Saxons” (that is, the USA, Great Britain and the supranational structures, which conspiracy the).

Secret document

The first person who spoke about the Chancellor act is considered Major General Gerd Helmut Komoss, the former head of the Military counterintelligence service of Germany (1977–1980). In 2007, his book was published in Austria "German map: Secret Game of Secret Services", In which there is Such a fragment: “The Federal Intelligence Service appropriated the degree of strict secrecy of May 21, 1949. The contract enshrined the fundamental restrictions imposed by winners on the sovereignty of the Federal Republic for the period until 2099. <...> The allied powers were also assigned the right to fulfill full monitoring of German media ... The contract provided that before taking the oath, each Federal Chancellor of Germany, by order of the Allies, is obliged to sign the so -called chancello act. In addition, the Allies arrested the gold reserve of the Federal Republic. ”

The book itself turned out to be scandalous. Komoss, recalling the years of his service in the Wehrmacht (1943–1945), spoke about the heroism of the soldiers of the Nazi army and complained about the ungrateful descendants and allies, who "ruined" the image of a "valiant German soldier."

The choice of the ARS-Werlag publishing house is also noteworthy. In 1917, the Austrian entrepreneur Leopold Shtleker founded a publishing house, which initially published books on agricultural management, but by 1930, Leopold StoCker Verlag printed for the most part nationalist and anti-Semitic literature. Publishing house He continued his work after World War II, alternating livestock books with ultra -right works. In 2004, the grandson of the founder of the company Wolfgang Dvorak-Shtoker registered the brand ARS-Werlag for the publication of "works on historical topics." The publishing house also issues a magazine Neue Ordnung (“New Order” - German.

Komoss in his book did not limit himself to a description of the chancellor act - he attached a document that, as he claimed, proved the existence of a secret agreement.

A document printed on a typewriter is not a clerical act itself, but a message supposedly from the ministerial correspondence. It is addressed to the unnamed minister, and signed by the State Minister Dr. Rickerman. The first paragraph states that one of the copies of the secret state agreement between the military allies and the transition government of West Germany of May 21, 1949 disappeared. Then the content of the act is retold.

This secret state agreement stipulated primarily the following:

- Possession of allies by German newspapers, radio and television until 2099;

- The so -called chancellor act, that is, a written document that each federal chancellor at the request of the Allies signs before taking the oath;

- ownership of the allies of the gold reserve of the Federal Republic.

At the end of the text, it is noted that if the document fell into the wrong hands, its authenticity should be denied.

Official reaction

The publication of the book Komoss in 2007 was not left without attention. First, right -winged publications were written about her and about the sensational document. Soon, with the question of the Chancellor act, they turned to Angel Merkel on her website. The press service of the federal chancellor answered: “The secret state agreement you mentioned belongs to the field of legends. This state agreement does not exist. And of course, the chancellor did not need to sign the so -called chancellor act by order of the Allies before taking the oath. "

Then the question of the existence of the chancellor act was raised in the Bundestag. In 2009, a deputy asked the Soyuz 90 / Green faction with the authenticity of the document. He received an official response from the Secretary of State of Parliament Peter Altmayer. Firstly, Altmeier said, this is a fake, such an agreement does not exist and never existed. Secondly, in 1990, all the obligations of the Allied against Germany were revised by the so -called “2 + 4” agreement - an agreement on the final settlement on the eve of the country's association. This agreement He canceled the remains of the occupation status of Germany and the GDR, as well as all the privileges of the Allies (USSR, USA, France and Great Britain) in Germany. The united country received complete sovereignty over all its internal and external affairs. Details about the status of Germany and relations with the allies "verified" It wrote After the Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2023 stated that legally the United States allegedly did not issue the end of the occupation of Germany.

The origin of the document

When there are doubts about the authenticity of the document, many details are important, including its origin. Theoretically, Major General Comoss, as the head of the military counterintelligence (MAD), could have access to secret papers, but in the book he does not explain how the letter of the state minister came to him. After the publication of the German Card, the Junge Freiheit publication asked this question to the author. He sent the editorial a copy of the letter and tried to eliminate the omissions. His answer is the newspaper Published January 18, 2008.

Komoss said: his words were incorrectly interpreted and he allegedly did not mean at all that Germany should still be reported to the allies. As for the ministerial letter itself, Major General explained its origin as follows: “I used the so-called BND document (Federal Intelligence Service.-Approx. Ed.), To which I had access to my official position. However, I never checked the authenticity of these papers, and even today I do not know whether these documents are genuine or false. Personally, I am inclined to the second option, and on my part it was a big mistake not to note this in the book. ”

But even this justification is doubtful. Firstly, by virtue of his position, Komoss as the head of MAD, subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, could hardly have access to the secret documents of another intelligence service, which is directly subordinated to the federal chancellor. Secondly, in the lower right corner of the document there is a date-1992. Komoss left the post of head of MAD in 1980, and by 1992 he had already retired.

The mysterious document that actually fixes the vassal status of Germany in relation to the allies was mentioned in various sources more than once. In 1999, lawless magazine UnabHängige Nachrichten Announced the release of Professor James Shirley, in which he was supposed to tell about certain secret protocols to the basic law of Germany. However, neither then, nor later, a historian or political scientist could be found with such a name, and the book did not come out and hardly ever existed.

In 2009, the closest comrade -in -arms of the Chancellor Willy Brandt (held this position from 1969 to 1974), former Minister Egon Bar Bar Published an article In the weekly Die Zeit, in which he spoke about a strange episode with the signing of certain letters. According to the bar, Brandt shortly after the oath said that he was brought to the signature of three letters addressed to the ambassadors of the United States, France and Great Britain. They needed to confirm some reservations established by representatives of the victorious powers on May 12, 1949, that is, in fact, to agree with the restriction of the sovereignty of Germany. At the same time, the bar did not talk about the chancellor act, or that he had to be signed before the oath.

Unknown Minister, Font from the Grandma album and other errors

A lot of questions - both from the technical and from a logical point of view - arose among specialists and to the ministerial letter from the book of Komosos. A variety of experts analyzed its copy in detail. One of them - Employee of the University of Gettingen Holger Berwinkel, another -historian-revisionist of ultra-right views Klaus Nordbruch. Both came to the same conclusions: a ministerial letter, allegedly proving the existence of a chancellor act, is a roughly made fake.

Let's get back once again to the photo of the letter. The department is indicated in the upper left corner - Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, Federal Intelligence Service). Manuscript notes are left on the fields. Most of them are illegible (intentionally, as He thinks Bervinkel), two notes on the left say: "Please, destroy the original!" and "in the archive."

Historians have discovered many inconsistencies. We will give the most significant of them.

Technical errors

• In 1996, an official letter printed on a typewriter looks like an anachronism.
• The sender is the control department (Kontroll-Abteilung) without mentioning the department, which he is included.
• The status “Secret information is for official use” (Verschlußsache - Nur für den Dienstgebrauch) in the upper left corner is reinforced by a mark at the top of the center “Officially Secret” (Amtlich Geheimgehalten). This is an impossible combination. According to the rules of the German document circulation, the mark on official secrecy is compatible only with the marks “Top Secret”, “Secret” and “Confidential”.
• The template mark on the receipt in the lower right corner (Z.D.A. - Zu Den Akten) looks strange for the outgoing document.
• The handwritten font of notes in the fields is an imitation of the obsolete Prussian Sütterlinwho was taught in the first half of the twentieth century. According to Bervinkel, for the paleographer in the official document of the 1990s, it looks like a funny old font from a grandmother's poetic album.
• The main text of the document is displaced in the center, as if specially leaving a place for sweeping handwritten litter.

Actual errors

• The sender of the letter is state minister Dr. Rickerman. A man with such a surname never held a similar post.
• There is no state minister in the BND structure. Staatsminister - this is an official title parliamentary state secretaries under the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Foreign Minister. People who head the German ministries are the title of federal ministers (Bundesminister), and BND is headed by its president.

Logical errors

• Manuscript notes “destroy” and “in the archive” contradict each other.
• For some reason, the sender retells the addressee of the Chancellor Act, which he should be so aware.
• The Federal Republic of Germany, mentioned in the document, was formed on May 23, 1949, two days later than the alleged signing of the chancello act, where this name is given.
• The relations of Germany with the allies by 1992 were repeatedly revised (more details - in this analysis “Checked”), therefore it is not clear why the letter contains a reference by 1949.

Separately, it is worth saying about the existence of two photographs of ministerial writing on the Web. In one version, the typos are adjusted and the indentes are put in order (for example, between numbers in the dates). As a result, the length of the lines in two copies is different, while all manuscript notes are identical. This allows even conspiracygists to make an unequivocal conclusion that at least one letter is a fake.

For almost two decades, the story of the Chancellor act has become very popular among supporters of the theory of conspiracy in Germany. Belief in the existence of such a document fits the revanchist sentiments of the nationalist part of German society-especially those who, as a retired major general of Comoss, consider the crimes of the third Reich imposed by winners an ideology.

Moreover, the only document supposedly proving the existence of a chancellor act. - Not the most neat fake. This is evidenced by numerous technical, actual and logical errors made by the compilers of the letter. Thus, fantastic details were added to the historical fact (the influence of the Allies on the policy of Germany until a certain time) to create a conspiracy theory.

Photo on the cover: Lukasz Kobus / European Union

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?