Don’t believe the ‘Believe Her’ movement

I never expected to have strong feelings for a member of Germany’s Green party, but I really do feel extremely sorry for Stefan Gelbhaar, once (but not now or ever again) an MP for Berlin.

Gelbhaar is a 48-year-old criminal defence lawyer who was, until very recently, running to be a candidate in the 23 February elections. He’s reasonably handsome if you like a Timothy Dalton chin dent. He has two young children and he’s a moderate, centrist Green, which is probably the root cause of his troubles.

Late last year, quite out of the blue, Gelbhaar was informed by Green HQ that serious allegations of sexual assault had been made against him by an anonymous woman known only by a pseudonym, ‘Anne K’. He was never told who Anne K was or what he was supposed to have done to her, so it was impossible for him to defend himself. Gelbhaar swore he’d nothing to hide, but what could he say? ‘I didn’t do any of the things I don’t know about’? Just before Christmas the German public broadcaster RBB secured a signed letter from the mysterious Anne K swearing her accusations were true, so they ran with the story of Gelbhaar’s ‘crimes’ and he was encouraged to resign. Green career up in smoke.

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I see this is not so far very unusual. Sexual skulduggery is par for the course in politics. But the twist in Gelbhaar’s tale is that it turns out that Anne K doesn’t actually exist. RBB has had to announce the fact, shamefaced.