Meryem 🖤🩶💜 retweetledi
It is the year 2025. The Israel lobbyist and former member of the German Bundestag, Hartmut Ebbing (FDP), is caught with videos of sexual violence against children. According to the prosecution, he even distributed them.
He then writes a letter to the Berlin public prosecutor’s office and the Tiergarten district court. In the letter, Ebbing asks that no public trial be scheduled. Among other reasons, he cites his prominence, but more importantly: to prevent damage to the German-Israeli Society. The German-Israeli Society (DIG) is the most influential and aggressive pro-Israel lobbying group in Germany, which describes itself as “pro-Zionist” and, according to Reporters Without Borders, exerts pressure on the German press not to report critically on Israel. Hartmut Ebbing is a board member and treasurer of this organization.
The state agreed and, in February 2025, sentenced him without public proceedings to just 10 months’ probation, and he remained treasurer of the DIG. The public did not hear about any of this.
However, Ebbing later had to appear in court again. Once more for child sexual abuse offenses. He is alleged to have abused a 7-year-old child together with the child’s mother, his partner at the time, a teacher. The Braunschweig Regional Court sentenced him in March to two years and ten months in prison. The partner was also convicted.
In his earlier letter to the Berlin judiciary, Ebbing referred to “October 7th” and emphasized that it was important to prevent damage to the German-Israeli Society, reports Die Zeit. In this way, Ebbing invoked the “but Hamas” argument in a case of child abuse.
Only after the second charge in Braunschweig became public, nearly a year after the first conviction, did Ebbing leave his party FDP and step down from his position as treasurer of the DIG. For almost a year, a convicted pedophile managed the finances of the pro-Israel lobbying group, which is largely funded by German taxpayer money. The state continued to channel funds into the DIG. In 2025 alone, despite Ebbing’s conviction, the DIG received around one million euros in taxpayer money from the federal government and the state of Berlin.
Had Ebbing not been charged again in Braunschweig, much of this might never have come to light. And he might still be using German taxpayer money to advocate for Israeli actions.
In the DIG’s “Bremer Declaration” of September 2024, Hartmut Ebbing called for Israel to “completely conquer” Gaza, for calls to boycott Israel to be criminalized, for Germany to supply weapons to Israel, and even for mosques and media critical of Israel to potentially be shut down or banned.
These are anti-democratic and inhumane positions, though not unusual within the DIG.
Although Ebbing had been convicted for nearly a year for possession and distribution of child pornography, both the DIG and the FDP claim they were unaware of it. In a press release, the DIG stated it was “shocked” by the allegations and distanced itself from Ebbing. Despite the prior conviction, Ebbing remained for months, until the very end, the second most important figure on the DIG’s website.
According to the DIG, during his time in the Bundestag Ebbing also served on boards of trustees of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum Foundation. In doing so, he was part of bodies that help shape political connections, funding decisions, and public debates around Holocaust remembrance.
In short, Ebbing was one of those who sought to define for the country what constitutes antisemitism and what does not. That he was in no way qualified for this, and indeed entirely lacking in character, was never considered relevant.
Ebbing, a father of three, was born in Berlin, served as an FDP member of the Bundestag from 2019 to 2021, is Protestant, and, as a member of parliament, claimed to advocate for youth protection. His primary profession was as a tax advisor.
English
