GERMANY, THE ELITE UNDER THE ORDERS OF THE US, NATO, AND THE WEF: ALL THE NAMES

Oct 20, 2025

Today I am providing my English translation of an article by Wolfgang Bittner, originally in German and first published on nachdenkseiten.de on Sunday 14th September 2025 and then translated into Italian and published on ComeDonChisciotte.org two days after, i.e. on Tuesday 16th September 2025. (All formatting and footnotes original).

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (L) and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (R).

Germany must become “ready for war,” and the Berlin government has allocated astronomical sums for rearmament. This is because, according to statements made, Russia wants to conquer Western Europe after Ukraine, even though there is no evidence to support this hypothesis and Putin has never expressed such intentions. Nevertheless, rearmament is such that a third world war can no longer be ruled out.
However, there is almost no opposition to this destructive policy, nor to excessive regulation, digitalization, and surveillance, which are leading not only Germany toward totalitarianism. But what about German sovereignty? And what consequences will the changing balance of power have at the global level, now that many states have withdrawn from the dominance of the United States? Excerpt from the book Geopolitik im Überblick (Geopolitics at a Glance) by Wolfgang Bittner.

The Atlantic Pact

On 4th April 1949, twelve Western states founded NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” is an alliance aimed at providing mutual military and political support. Currently, 32 European and North American states are members.

The North Atlantic Treaty, which regulates the rights and duties of members, states: “The parties undertake, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute involving them peacefully, so as not to jeopardize international peace, security, and justice, and to refrain, in their international relations, from any threat or use of force incompatible with the purposes of the United Nations”.

NATO departed from these declarations at the latest with its attack on Yugoslavia, which was contrary to international law. It transformed itself into an aggressive organization under the domination of the United States and expanded into South America and Asia. In 1998, Argentina was granted the status of major ally, and in 2022, Colombia became a “global partner.” Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore have also joined as global partners.

When the Warsaw Pact was dissolved as its Eastern counterpart in 1991 during a period of détente, NATO remained in force. The creation of a European defense alliance that included Russia was blocked by the United States. On the contrary, contrary to the agreements enshrined in the protocols, NATO continued to expand eastward to Russia’s borders. At the same time, intelligence activities and influence on politics and the media were intensified. In the early 1990s, the United States also resumed and intensified its infiltration and indoctrination measures, in addition to the mostly highly criminal activities of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and NSA [National Security Agency], using tried and tested organizations.

Networks close to the United States and NATO

The US State Department, intelligence services and other interested circles in the United States have covered the entire world, and Germany in particular, with a network of think tanks and non-governmental organisations since the end of the Second World War. These include Atlantik-Brücke, Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz, European Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute, Goldman Sachs Foundation, The American Interest, Atlantic Council, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, Rockefeller Foundation, German Marshall Fund (GMF), Atlantische Initiative – in total well over a hundred organisations1.

Almost all leading German politicians and many journalists are members of these networks, which represent the interests of the United States and NATO at the expense of their own country and a policy of European peace. Members of Atlantik-Brücke, chaired since 2019 by former Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), include Friedrich Merz (CDU), Angela Merkel (CDU), Christian Lindner (FDP), Norbert Röttgen (CDU), Annalena Baerbock (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Omid Nouripour (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (FDP), Stefan Liebich (Die Linke), Kai Diekmann (former editor of the Bild group), Martin Winterkorn (former chairman of the board of Volkswagen AG), Michael Hüther (director of the German Economic Institute), Birgit Breuel (former chairwoman of the Treuhandanstalt) and Wolfgang Ischinger (former chairman of the Munich Security Conference)2.

Other members of networks close to the United States and NATO include Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), Claus Kleber (former presenter of the ZDF-heute-journal television programme),

Jens Spahn (CDU), Edmund Stoiber (CSU), Klaus von Dohnanyi (SPD), Joschka Fischer (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and Cem Özdemir (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). In addition, there are representatives from the worlds of business, science and culture3. The situation is similar in the media. The Western mass media are privately owned, the owners and publishers are in line with the government, and the management positions in the editorial offices are occupied by pro-US journalists, who are very often members of various US networks. This has broadened the influence on the media that shape public opinion.

It is no surprise that under these conditions, media coverage has become standardised, often degenerating into propaganda and incitement to hatred. The “new generation” is also being targeted. The United States has set up seminars for so-called young leaders at elite universities, thus creating a core of emerging young politicians and journalists. Although this is denied, it has been proven that many prominent journalists and high-ranking politicians have attended courses and seminars where they were sensitised to US politics.

Over the years, the following influential figures, for example, have participated in training courses organised by the networks: Angela Merkel, Olaf Scholz, Friedrich Merz, Markus Söder, Christian Lindner, Jens Spahn, Cem Özdemir, Omid Nouripour, Annalena Baerbock, Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, Kai Diekmann, Claus Kleber, Sandra Maischberger, but also Emmanuel Macron, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Sebastian Kurz, José Manuel Barroso, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, to name but a few4.

From time to time, we see how individuals are used in a targeted manner for propaganda purposes. For example, Alexei Navalny, the influential agent allegedly poisoned by the Kremlin, spent several months at the elite Yale University in Connecticut in 2010 as part of the Yale World Fellows Programme to prepare for his role as a global leader (i.e. “regime changer”) . Similar training was given to Ukraine’s Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili, Lithuania’s Dalia Grybauskaitė, Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó and other US “bearers of hope”5. But all this happens in secret, until these previously insignificant people suddenly become famous and commit themselves to policies that are in the interests of the United States.

Influence and objectives of the World Economic Forum

In parallel with the indoctrination measures of the United States and NATO, in 1992 the influential World Economic Forum (WEF) launched a programme for “Global Leaders of Tomorrow”, which since 2004 has been called “Young Global Leaders”, also aimed at promoting suitable future leaders. This has led to the creation of a global network of prominent leaders from politics, business, the media, the military, the nobility, the arts, culture and so on, who are committed to the plans of the World Economic Forum.

The WEF, a foundation and lobbying organisation with a worldwide network, is based in Switzerland, near Geneva, and organises annual meetings, mostly in Davos, attended by the world’s elite. It has offices in New York, Tokyo and Beijing.

The power of this organisation, like that of the “Bilderberg Group”6, is often underestimated. In fact, it is mostly perceived as a harmless circle of notables who meet in the Swiss mountains to chat. However, the actual influence of the WEF is evident when one looks at the long list of participants. It is a demonstration of the economic and political power of the world’s most influential people and some 1,000 companies with annual revenues in excess of US$5 billion7. These include BlackRock, the Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs, Google, The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé, IBM, Siemens, SAP, Allianz, Bank of America, BP Amoco, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post DHL, Facebook, the pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Mitsubishi Corporation, PayPal, Saudi Aramco, Siemens and even the media group Thomson Reuters8.

The basic membership fee of 42,000 Swiss Francs and a fee of 18,000 Swiss Francs for the respective chairperson/chief executive officer of the companies to attend the annual meeting therefore seem appropriate. Industry members and strategic partners pay between 250,000 and 500,000 Swiss Francs to participate meaningfully in the forum’s initiatives9.

The WEF’s plans for a reorganisation of society are little known to the general public, and reading the statements about an “Open Forum” held concurrently with the annual meeting for a select audience, it all seems quite reasonable: “…to engage the public in discussions between political, economic, scientific and civil society decision-makers… Our speakers regularly include high-level government representatives, business leaders, scientists, artists and activists who share their stories and perspectives with the public. In the spirit of Davos, the Open Forum aims to promote dialogue between decision-makers from different sectors and social backgrounds in order to find solutions to the most pressing global challenges of our time”10.

The goal becomes criminal when the WEF, in its 2010 “Global Redesign” report, states that “a globalised world is best governed by a coalition of multinational corporations, governments (including through the United Nations (UN) system) and selected Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)”. Governments would no longer be “the predominant actors on the world stage”, so “the time has come for a new paradigm of international governance based on stakeholders”11.

Consequently, the WEF intends to replace forms of democratic organisation, in which power in the state derives from the people through elected representatives, with a system of government in which a group of “stakeholders”, or “prominent figures”, constitute a global decision-making body. This therefore means a plutocratic dictatorship in a borderless and supranational world. A self-proclaimed elite would take power and form a kind of world government.

Based on this goal, the WEF presents itself as a powerful, quasi-mafia-like organisation that is preparing for the seizure of power by “prominent figures” who are not democratically legitimised on a global scale. To implement the programme, phases of global instability, such as Covid, famines or the consequences of the war in Ukraine, can then be exploited. US researcher Nick Buxton, who has studied the WEF’s intentions in depth, concludes that “we are increasingly entering a world where meetings like Davos are not ridiculous playgrounds for billionaires, but the future of global governance”. It would be “nothing less than a silent coup d’état”12.

Infiltration of the top echelons

With its programme to promote competent future leaders, launched in 1992, the WEF has succeeded in filling many of the most important positions in politics and economics with people who embody the “spirit of Davos”. In an interview, its founder Klaus Schwab stated: “What we are very proud of … is that with our Young Global Leaders we are entering governments”13. In this way, the WEF influences public life around the world.

In 2019, UN Secretary-General António Guterres was called upon by more than 400 civil society organisations and 40 international networks to end a partnership agreement between the WEF and the UN, as it was a “disturbing corporate takeover” of the UN that was “dangerously pushing the world towards privatised and undemocratic global governance”14.

Other prominent figures have warned against the Forum’s influence. US journalist Diana Johnstone considers the WEF to be a “combination of a capitalist consulting firm and a giant lobby”, focused on “digital innovation, massive automation through ‘artificial intelligence’ and, ultimately, even the ‘improvement’ of human beings by artificially endowing them with certain characteristics of robots: for example, problem solving without ethical distractions”. She calls the forum a “voice of aspiring global governance”: “From above, experts decide what the masses should want and distort the supposed desires of the people to fit the profit schemes they peddle”15.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, has also criticised the fact that people such as the founder and organiser of the WEF, economist Klaus Schwab, sit “on the throne of their wealth” and are untouched by the daily difficulties and sufferings of the people. Rather, they see crises such as Covid as an opportunity to implement their agenda of a global meritocratic “Great Reset” with increasing control over society16. Müller criticised the support coming from, among others, transhumanist17 circles, for which he was accused of anti-Semitism.

In 2020, Schwab published a bestseller entitled COVID-19: Der große Umbruch (“The Great Reset”) together with French economist and “global strategist” Thierry Malleret. In it, he writes about the WEF’s intentions: “It is about making the world less divided, less polluting, less destructive, more inclusive, more just and fair than we left it in the pre-pandemic period”. Changes “that seemed unimaginable before the outbreak of the pandemic” could occur, and there will be a “new normal”.18

When asked about his ideas for the planned “global reset”, Schwab replied in an interview on 19th November 2020, at the height of the coronavirus crisis: “I find the term ‘reset’ appropriate... Because one thing is clear: we cannot go back to the old normal... So what we need in our world is a more systemic approach... a reform of the international system”.19 Work is underway in this direction, and for the WEF, this obviously means the implementation of a “stakeholder society”.

The extent of the influence that the WEF actually exerts on public life worldwide with its training courses is demonstrated by the lists of participants in the Global Leaders Programme. From the outset, in 1992, those selected included personalities who would later become very famous, such as Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Manuel Barroso and Bill Gates.

Hundreds of others followed, gradually assuming prominent positions: Emmanuel Macron, David Cameron, Justin Trudeau, Sebastian Kurz, Matteo Renzi, Mark Rutte, Jacinda Ardern (Prime Minister of New Zealand), Sanna Marin (Prime Minister of Finland), Ida Auken (former Minister of the Environment of Denmark), Queen Mary of Denmark, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), Larry Page (co-founder of Google), Leonardo DiCaprio (actor), Niklas Zennström (co-developer of Skype), Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia)…20

Among the most prominent German participants in previous years were: Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Olaf Scholz, Markus Söder, Robert Habeck, Annalena Baerbock, Omid Nouripour, Cem Özdemir, Jens Spahn, Volker Bouffier, Armin Laschet, Winfried Kretschmann, Julia Klöckner, Wolfgang Ischinger, Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, Claus Kleber, Sandra Maischberger, Cardinal Reinhard Marx…21 The wide circle of people mentioned suggests that the imposition of the German and European political caste with personalities who follow or are close to the goals of the WEF has been successful.

Irritation was caused by the fact that WEF founder Schwab resigned from his positions on 21st April 2025. He was accused of embezzlement. His successor is Austrian manager and former Nestlé board chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe22.

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