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For The Record  

FTR #245 Deutsche Telekom Uber Alles — Update on German Corporate Control Over American Media

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1. Updat­ing a series about Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over the Amer­i­can media, this broad­cast deals with the entry of Deutsche Telekom into the Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket and the resul­tant influ­ence of the com­pa­ny on the Amer­i­can media.

2. The pro­gram begins with an excerpt from FTR #235, not­ing fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ences between Ger­man cor­po­rate behav­ior and that of Amer­i­can com­pa­nies. In par­tic­u­lar, the excerpt high­lights the influ­ence on Ger­man cor­po­rate life of the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion.

When con­sid­er­ing Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that they are con­trolled by the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion. This insti­tu­tion has per­pet­u­at­ed its pow­er in an effec­tive, clan­des­tine, and dead­ly, Mafia-like fash­ion in the years since World War II. Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions are dri­ven by the prof­it motive, and coor­di­nate poli­cies on labor, envi­ron­men­tal, mar­ket­ing and tax­a­tion issues–they are oth­er­wise apo­lit­i­cal. In con­trast, Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions (under con­trol of the Bor­mann group) func­tion as coor­di­nat­ed ele­ments of inter­na­tion­al, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal con­trol, not unlike the divi­sions in an army. Although they, too, strive to make mon­ey, prof­it is sub­or­di­nate to the goal of Ger­man nation­al hege­mo­ny.

3. This pro­gram (and the entire series on Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over the Amer­i­can media) must, in turn, be under­stood in the con­text of the Nazi tract Ser­pen­t’s Walk (Nation­al Van­guard Books, soft cov­er, copy­right 1991, ISBN # 0–937944-05‑X. The book, sup­pos­ed­ly a nov­el, is a blue­print for the strate­gic pol­i­cy Nazi ele­ments are cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing. In this regard, it would resem­ble The Turn­er Diaries, also pub­lished by Nation­al Vanguard–the pub­lish­ing arm of the Nation­al Alliance. This book was the role mod­el for Tim­o­thy McVeigh & Co. in the Okla­homa City Bomb­ing, as well as the Nazi group The Order.)

4. Deutsche Telekom’s influ­ence on the inter­net is of para­mount impor­tance. One of the most impor­tant tools for access­ing inter­net con­tent fig­ures to be mobile tele­phones. (The Los Ange­les Times, 7/24/2000, p. C1.) (For more on Ger­man cor­po­rate con­trol over the inter­net, see FTR-242, in addi­tion to oth­er pro­grams in this series.)

5. Already Europe’s largest inter­net provider with its sub­sidiary T‑Online, Deutsche Telekom looms large on the hori­zon of this new tech­nol­o­gy. (CBS.MarkeWatch.com, 7/7/2000.)

6. The com­pa­ny is plan­ning a glob­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions offen­sive. (The New York Times, 7/5/2000, p. C1.)

7. This offen­sive will empha­size “four areas: data net­work­ing based on the Inter­net pro­to­col; wire­less; online ser­vices; and basic access, includ­ing broad­band Inter­net access.” (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 7/6/2000, p. A23.)

8. Each of the com­pa­ny’s acqui­si­tions will be eval­u­at­ed in terms of its poten­tial for advanc­ing Deutsche Telekom’s agen­da in these areas. (Idem.)

9. Much of the broad­cast cen­ters on DT’s pur­chase of Voic­eS­tream Wire­less Cor­po­ra­tion. Although many ana­lysts felt that DT paid too much for the Seat­tle-based firm, Voice-Stream uses the GSM tech­nol­o­gy, used by most Euro­pean com­pa­nies. (The San Fran­cis­co Exam­in­er, 7/25/2000, p. C‑1.)

10. It is viewed as being “one to two years ahead of oth­er cell phone net­works in the Unit­ed States.” (Ibid., p. C‑3.) It is impor­tant to bear in mind that Deutsche Telekom is con­trolled by the Ger­man Gov­ern­ment, which owns more than 50% of its shares! (The exact fig­ure is put at between 56 and 58%, depend­ing on the source.)

11. Next, the pro­gram reca­pit­u­lates anoth­er excerpt from FTR 235, dis­cussing the Euro­pean Union. In addi­tion to rep­re­sent­ing a fun­da­men­tal incur­sion on Amer­i­can sov­er­eign­ty (the Unit­ed States is not rep­re­sent­ed in the Euro­pean Union), the EU’s influ­ence on Amer­i­can cor­po­rate prac­tice can serve as a vehi­cle for Ger­man eco­nom­ic hege­mo­ny. (Mr. Emory’s obser­va­tions in this con­text should not be mis­in­ter­pret­ed as an endorse­ment of eco­nom­ic glob­al­iza­tion or con­cen­tra­tion of eco­nom­ic pow­er. Rather, they should be under­stood as analy­sis of the geo-polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions of under­cur­rents with­in these impor­tant, and on-going, eco­nom­ic phe­nom­e­na.)

12. In addi­tion to pres­sure from the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice over poten­tial monop­o­lis­tic over­tones to the deal, the recent can­cel­la­tion of the World­Com-Sprint merg­er stemmed, in part, from oppo­si­tion by the EU. This can­cel­la­tion may facil­i­tate the takeover of either World­Com or Sprint by Deutsche Telekom. (The New York Times, 6/27/2000, p. C2.)

13. A num­ber of Sen­a­tors intro­duced leg­is­la­tion intend­ed to block the pur­chase of an Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firm by any com­pa­ny with more than 25 % of its shares owned by a for­eign gov­ern­ment. (The Los Ange­les Times, 7/25/2000, pp. A1, 9.)

14. Some ana­lysts view this leg­is­la­tion as retal­i­a­tion for the EU’s role in deep-six­ing the World­Com-Sprint merg­er. (Idem.)

15. The Euro­pean Union, in turn, has threat­ened to with­draw from the WTO, if the Sen­ate blocks the Deutsche Telekom pur­chase of Voic­eS­tream. (Finan­cial Times, 7/22–23/2000, p. 1; Finan­cial Times, 7/26/2000, p. 7.)

16. The EU’s stance on this mat­ter fur­ther under­scores that insti­tu­tion’s role as a vehi­cle for Ger­man cor­po­rate hege­mo­ny. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment has also vig­or­ous­ly protest­ed against the pend­ing leg­is­la­tion. (The Finan­cial Times, 7/27/2000, p. 7.)

17. Echo­ing Mr. Emory’s warn­ings about Ger­man cor­po­rate hege­mo­ny, A. Michael Noll (a pro­fes­sor and for­mer dean at USC’s Annen­berg School for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions) has char­ac­ter­ized the Deutsche Telekom/VoiceStream deal as “the colo­nial­ism and impe­ri­al­ism of the past.” (The Los Ange­les Times, 7/26/2000, p. A17.)

18. Noll also points out that Deutsce Telekom’s stock is great­ly over­val­ued, and that the over­val­ued stock is the vehi­cle for its pro­ject­ed pur­chas­es of oth­er cor­po­ra­tions. (Idem.)

19. As men­tioned above, the poten­tial tar­gets for takeover by DT include both World­Com (New York Times, 7/28/2000, p. C4) and Sprint (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 7/28/2000, p. B6). Again, the WorldCom/Sprint merg­er was blocked, in part, by the EU. The Ger­man gov­ern­men­t’s argu­ment on behalf of DT’s pur­chase of Voic­eS­tream (and oth­er com­pa­nies) is pred­i­cat­ed the notion that these pur­chas­es will dilute the gov­ern­ment stake in the com­pa­ny.

20. The his­to­ry of Deutsche Telekom and oth­er Ger­man com­pa­nies sug­gests that DT’s actions may, in prac­tice, turn out to be anti-com­pet­i­tive, their dis­claimers to the con­trary notwith­stand­ing. (The New York Times, 7/24/2000, p. A8.)

21. A close exam­i­na­tion of DT’s sell-off of its cable licens­es in Ger­many strong­ly sug­gests that its busi­ness may con­tin­ue “as usu­al.” Despite the sell-off of the cable licens­es, DT retained effec­tive con­trol behind the scenes, sell­ing the licens­es to small com­pa­nies, includ­ing a rel­a­tive­ly mys­te­ri­ous indi­vid­ual named Gary A. Klesch. (The New York Times, 7/26/2000, p C1.) Vir­tu­al­ly unknown, even in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­try, the Lon­don-based Klesch is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the type of indi­vid­ual that is fre­quent­ly uti­lized by the Bor­mann group. This sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that that orga­ni­za­tion looms large in the back­ground of DT’s sell-off of its cable licens­es.

22. In order to com­bat the Hollings-spon­sored leg­is­la­tion, Deutsche Telekom has retained the pow­er­ful Wash­ing­ton law firm of Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing. (The Wall Street Jour­nal, 7/21/2000, p. A9.)

23. In an excerpt from FTR 139, the pro­gram high­lights the recent addi­tion of Matthias Wiss­man, the trea­sur­er of the CDU par­ty in Ger­many (and a for­mer trans­port min­is­ter) to Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing. (Finan­cial Times, 3/2/99.)

24. The pro­gram also notes that Wilmer, Cut­ler & Pick­er­ing had rep­re­sent­ed Swiss banks in a law­suit filed by Holo­caust vic­tims against Swiss banks, as well as act­ing as coun­sel for Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions being sued over their use of slave labor in World War II. (Idem.) This con­nec­tion also sug­gests the pres­ence of the Bor­mann group in the back­ground of the law­suits, as well as in the DT machi­na­tions. It should be not­ed that, as trea­sur­er of the CDU, Wiss­man must have had first hand knowl­edge of the CDU fund­ing scan­dal dis­cussed in FTR-193. (This scan­dal, as well, may involve the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion.)

25. Next, the broad­cast dis­cuss­es the nation­al secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of allow­ing for­eign gov­ern­men­tal monop­o­lies to pur­chase Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firms. Some ana­lysts dis­claim the notion that DT could present a nation­al secu­ri­ty threat to the Unit­ed States. (The Los Ange­les Times, 7/25/2000, p. A1.)

26. The pro­gram reca­pit­u­lates yet anoth­er excerpt of FTR-235, in which Mr. Emory reit­er­ates his fear that DT’s pen­e­tra­tion of the Amer­i­can telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket could facil­i­tate the abil­i­ty of Ger­man intel­li­gence and the Under­ground Reich to tap Amer­i­cans’ phones. A recent case in El Sal­vador under­scored the pos­si­bil­i­ties of such an occur­rence. A sub­sidiary of France Tele­com (the French telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions firm) was appar­ent­ly involved in tap­ping phones of pri­vate cit­i­zens in that Cen­tral Amer­i­can repub­lic. (Finan­cial Times, 7/25/2000, p. 6.)

27. In this con­text, it is worth not­ing that there is sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion in France Tele­com by Deutsche Telekom. (Finan­cial Times, 5/24/2000, p. 18.)

28. It should also be not­ed that there is a direct con­nec­tion between the Ger­man gov­ern­ment and the Okla­homa City bomb­ing. (Record­ed on 8/20/2000.)

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