This spring, everything changed. Because Hingst's accounts contained contradictions, archivists in Stralsund, where most of her family came from, searched for evidence. Historian Gabriele Bergner from Teltow near Berlin, who specializes in personal research, also researched with a team to see if there was any truth to the stories. Not much, it netherlands rcs data turned out. For example, Hingst's grandfather was not an Auschwitz prisoner, as she said, but a Protestant pastor; and most of the Holocaust victims she reported to Jerusalem never existed. The India story was also wrong.
Bergner turned to the "Spiegel", apparently because Hingst would not be dissuaded from her version. A "Spiegel" reporter confronted Hingst with the accusations and made public in June of this year that she had made up most of her life story. This sparked a lot of discussion and she was stripped of her blogger award. Her blog is no longer accessible. stories from the internet took them down. Questions remain.
Firstly, how should journalists deal with people who have obviously misled the public? They must make this public. This is the only way for the public to know that they have been deceived. The requirement of truthfulness, which is also laid down in the press code, requires such clarification from credible journalism. This is not only in the media's own interest, but is also necessary in this case because the false version is a slap in the face of all "real" Holocaust victims and because the historical truth demands such clarification.