Non-fiction book: “Beluga”: The cutter was practically plowed under

It drove from Rügen to Bornholm, from Saßnitz to Rønne. It had nothing loaded. The three crew members wanted to take over fishing gear and ice, and the life raft also had to be checked. The sunken boat – 17.5 meters long and weighing 114 tons – was discovered the next day at a depth of 20 meters. The dead sailors were only found months later.

The investigation was as dynamic and successful as the search for the perpetrators who blew up the Nord Stream I and II gas pipelines 23 years later. The comparison is also obvious in that both crime scenes are only a short distance apart. Which may certainly be a coincidence. But the parallels of the Enlightenment, which amount to a cover-up, are probably not so coincidental. It has a system somehow. Then as now, the authorities’ interest in keeping the matter under wraps predominates.

Yes, that’s how most conspiracy theories start. But the fact is that various official bodies, against their better judgment, blamed the sinking on the three sailors. The victims were turned into perpetrators. According to the unproven claim, they had too much water on board, and then even more water leaked into the boat through unsealed scuppers, which ultimately caused it to capsize. This thesis was also confirmed by expensive reports.

A wall of silence between Berlin and Brussels, the navy and the judiciary is blocking information.

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The Federal Ministry of Defense could have provided clarification, because the “Jaguar” naval maneuver had taken place in the known maritime area a few days before the start of the NATO war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Bonn Hardthöhe waved his hand: No, the ships involved in the maneuver were in resting position somewhere else at the time in question, and there were no reports from the fleet about a collision with the “Beluga” or anything like that.

But the Baltic Sea is one of the most closely monitored bodies of water in the world; surely there should be electronic recordings from land, from ships, from the air and from the cosmos? Those who wanted to shed light on the matters heard that they had all already been deleted.

Two television journalists from NDR were among those who persistently asked. They did this for a quarter of a century. One – Lutz Riemann, known as Oberleutnant Zimmermann on the GDR “Polizeiruf 110” – died as a result, the other – Michael Schmidt, once employed at the “Aktuelle Kamera” in Adlershof – is now retired. They returned to the topic again and again, accompanied the steps of the bereaved and their fellow fishermen from Sassnitz, and occasionally published about it in print media – including this newspaper. The two did not complain about the wall of silence and the inaction of the authorities, but rather made visible how the institutions of the constitutional state – from the public prosecutor’s office to the Maritime Office and the Oberseeamt, the Ministry of Defense to the Petitions Committee, from Berlin to Brussels – acted in strange harmony. As if they wanted to prove to the electorate that the old popular saying that one crow doesn’t peck out another’s eye is true.

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But, as the two attentive researchers sensed, it was more than just solidarity between civil servants, more than just esprit de corps or loyalty to their employer. An informant who wanted to remain nameless and was therefore of no value to the two journalists feared losing his job. His statement confirmed all reports and assumptions made by the researchers. During the maneuver, a German and a French warship would have stretched a steel cable several hundred meters long between them and would have set a parallel course. The aim was to stop small enemy surface ships in an emergency. “The warships were dimmed and sailed under electronic camouflage, not visible on the radar screens,” the witness is quoted in the book. »The “Beluga” drove blindly into the steel cable and sank. The cutter was practically plowed under. He doesn’t know anything about rescue attempts.”

It may have been like that. But also different. The electronic and other records that could confirm or refute this allegedly no longer existed at that time. So now everyone is waiting for the Cold Case of 1999, this unsolved capital crime, to be solved one day through new investigation results or advanced investigation methods. To ensure that the case remains in the public consciousness and is not forgotten, Michael Schmidt has published all of their investigations in one volume. This is more than just a summary, it is a testament to outstanding journalistic work that hardly exists today. It shows never-ending curiosity, the unbroken perseverance to stick with an unsolved topic, sustainability in the comprehensive sense.

Schmidt (and the late Riemann) demonstrate fairness and respect towards all interlocutors, regardless of whether they tell them the truth or withhold it. They resist the tendency, which is now common in this country, to throw out something that has been picked up for a quotable headline or because it is supposed to be new, without having checked its veracity. In this sense, Schmidt (and, in memory, Riemann) is a representative of the old school, in which journalistic credibility was based on competence and integrity, on accuracy and truthfulness. In view of the one-sidedness and political propaganda that dominates the media today, emphasizing this is not only legitimate but necessary.

You see what you know, Goethe once wrote. But who among the journalists today still reads Goethe?

Michael Schmidt: Cold Case on the Baltic Sea. The Beluga case. Verlag am Park/Edition Ost, 240 pages, br., 20 €.

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