The head of the Washington office of German State broadcaster ZDF, Elmar Theveßen, may have to leave the US following a series of derogatory remarks about senior White House officials.
Over the weekend of September 13, two influential members of the US President Donald Trump’ administration – US presidential envoy Richard Grenell and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau – suggested the US may revoke Theveßen’s visa due to his comments.
Theveßen had wrongly claimed on a German ZDF talkshow on September 11 that Kirk – who had been fatally shot, allegedly by a reportedly left-wing radical, shortly before in Utah – had advocated the stoning of gays. He later repeated the false claim on a ZDF podcast.
On the same podcast Theveßen also attacked Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and US homeland security adviser, whom he accused of harbouring sympathies for National Socialism.
Theveßen said: “Stephen Miller has very extreme views, his convictions are also partly based, I would say, on the ideology of the Third Reich.” Miller is of Eastern European Jewish descent.
Grenell accused Theveßen of endangering Miller. In a post on X he wrote: “When you tell unstable people that someone is from the Third Reich, you are telling them to commit murder. How else would they deal with Hitler?”
He also mentioned that every German household needs to pay €18.36 per month to subsidise Theveßen’s employer ZDF and other public broadcasters.
Grenell concluded: “This radical lefty German keeps calling for violence against people he politically disagrees with. He poses as a journalist in Washington, DC. His visa should be revoked. There is no place in America this type of inciter.”
Landau responded to Grenell’s post with a cartoon depicting a superhero symbol akin to the bat signal with the slogan, “El Quitavisas”, Spanish for “the withdrawer of visas”.
Landau had previously announced a campaign against “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred” following a spate of remarks criticising Kirk by foreign journalists. Landau also told his followers on X to bring such comments to his attention.
Today, ZDF defended its Washington bureau chief. “Elmar Theveßen’s work is protected by the freedom of the press which is a precious commodity both in Germany and the US,” a spokesperson told German media.
The TV station claimed Theveßen had “explained his comments in detail”. His remarks about Miller had been a reference to “attitudes within the US administration that favour a strong concentration of power in the president and question democratic norms”, the spokesperson said.
Brussels Signal reached out to ZDF and Theveßen for comment but had not heard back at the time of writing.
Theveßen has been heading-up ZDF’s Washington office since 2019.
