Journalist doing politics under a false name

Mathias Brüggmann, journalist for the “Handelsblatt”, was active in the SPD for years under a false name. Now the cover is blown.

Mathias Brüggmann, International Correspondent at the “Handelsblatt” seems to like to dress up. A few years ago, when he was still a correspondent in London, he researched the ranks of Brexit supporters and passed himself off as one. He did it so conscientiously, with Union Jack hat, pins and flags in hand, that the major international news agencies wanted to have him in the picture. The photo went around the world. As a “Brexit supporter”, Brüggmann made it into the London “Evening Standard”. At the time, the journalist complained about the unscrupulousness of his photographing colleagues, who photographed him but didn’t ask why he was actually there.

The agencies themselves said that photographers would of course have to ask the person being photographed, but that this is not always possible at large events of this kind. One could add that Brüggmann had appeared with the intention of deceiving, so that the consequences of this deception should not be blamed solely on the unclean work of the photographers. Either way, the picture was withdrawn and the incident forgotten.