DOING FOR REINER. AND NOW WRITING TO REINER. Dear Reiner, from your "daughter," Elsa

Jul 23, 2024

I am a bit puzzled. Why have I written so little to Reiner?

In his updates, over and over Reiner thanks all the people who have written to him. So very important. He reads every letter he is given by the prison officials. These letters sustain him.

I have been posting updates, in English, on Reiner since his arrest. From the moment of his arrest, I cared to keep people informed. There was, at that time, almost nothing even in German. And nothing at all in English.

My first post. I translated the very little I found on a German site I discovered, bittel.tv, from Roger Bittel, a long-time friend who had never met Reiner in person but had had a weekly conversation with him for close to 3 years. Like me, he immediately made the commitment to keep people informed, including letting us know (sometimes week after week) there was no news.

But in all the months since the arrest, I have hardly written to Reiner. I sent a card shortly after the arrest and a few messages - I believe mainly about one idea or another. I’ve forgotten.

A few days ago, listening to Reiner’s most recent update, his most recent thank you to all the people who have written to him, I thought: it’s time to write.

My usual thought: so many people are writing to him. He doesn’t need me to write to him, so that he knows people care.

Still, somehow this time I decided it was my time to write.

But what to say? i was up against the same wall as usual.

I care about you and Inka.
I wish you well.
Freedom. Justice.
I am doing what I can for that to happen, keeping people informed.

The words are true, but they sound so empty.

I’ve cared to do more than post, actually. Before your arrest, I cared intensely to let you know about a book that I found a mind-changer, Political Ponerology - and I was so pleased that you also found it important. I also cared intensely to let you know about Judy Wood and Andrew Johnson and their wealth of facts about 9/11 - the “dustification” of the Twin Towers. And again, I was so pleased that you also found their work very important.

More people listen to you than me - so it felt great helping get their work further into the world.

But it was more than that. For me, sharing ideas, information, people I found - these were gifts to you. I’ve generally loved sharing information, like through teaching - gifts to people.

But I’m coming back to . . . not writing to you, or just coming to words that sound empty.

I think of other words.

Dear Reiner, from your “daughter,” Elsa.

In so many ways you remind me of my father - an intense, intelligent, passionately caring man, knowing so many things, questioning, wanting justice and fairness for everyone.

There is also a big difference. My father lived, outwardly, a small life - there was so much he did not do, in terms of reaching into the world with his passions, his concerns, his ideas, his poetry, his political longings. When he was about 65, he mentioned that, if he could live his life over, he might like to be a journalist.

It’s an opportunity he turned down when it same, soon after the end of the war.

The place, Vienna. His father had connections, got him into a program for journalists. It was a soft life - newspapers in the morning, much reading - no hunger. My father soon left. He could not take it, not being hungry when outside there was no much hunger. He went back to being an apprentice, hungry. And other people became journalists.

Recently, Reiner, you mentioned how important your grandmother was for you, always telling you that you could do anything.

For my father, most important, to the best of my knowledge, were experiences of powerlessness. I’m thinking of three, one from just before the end of the war, two from just after. I will, very briefly, tell only the first one. He wanted to rescue two men accused of being Communist, sentenced to be hung just days before the war ended. He got his father’s gun, rushed to where the makeshift gallows had been erected, intending to rescue - as was done in all the Westerns he loved reading. Instead he saw soldiers with machine guns on all the rooftops. No rescue was possible. And he watched the 2 men hung in front of him - slowly, their agony drawn out.

In many ways, I am like my father. Passionately concerned about truth and human rights and justice, about ideas and about creativity. And in my case, about doing what I can.

I inherited many of my father’s gifts. I also inherited that I have found it hard to reach into the world. So it took me a long time to find my way to college and university teaching, and to a larger reach for my writings.

In some ways, you are as my father would have loved to be - in your achievements, even in the way you are handling your imprisonment. “They will never break me.”

If you are as my father would have loved to be, what does it bring to me, to be in touch with you? I see what is possible. The Corona Committee. ICIC.

On a much smaller scale, I have been on a similar path, with my Truth Summits.

I am still reaching toward what is possible for me, right now, including with the Ed Wackerman case (which is developing into a book) and A Story, an unusual story about someone who walks into a used bookstore.

Then, if you are as my father would have loved to be (meaning, living fully, flourishing), what about my mother and Inka? My mother was a very care-taking woman - but something in her had been hurt through massively traumatizing experiences in her childhood and teens. She was not “in touch with herself” or intuitive. Inka is.

A question.

What does knowing any of this about me bring to you? I don’t know.

I know that knowing people brings to me, enriches me. My interviews are always on the person as well as on their ideas and achievements.

Another thought.

I got other messages from my father. Your grandmother told you you could do anything. As for my father, I felt he was proud of me, that he liked my being a thinker and writer and teacher, and my being able to argue passionately and intelligently. But the message wasn’t: you can do anything. It was, from his example: you can dream of doing anything.

Still another thought.

My father and I talked about many things. We didn’t talk about others.

How to make dreams come true. I don’t remember talking about that with him.

How hard it was, to find anything to do that felt important. I don’t remember talking about that with him.

Feeling stuck in way too small a life - so very very important. Same thing - we didn’t talk about that.

How to make sense of this confusing grown-up world. Same thing.

How to find a place in it that felt right.

I know I never talked about that with him.

So what do I have to say to you, Reiner?

When I did the first post after the arrest, I certainly had no idea there would be months of posts. I believed you would soon be released. But weeks turned into months. And then, starting in January, there was the trial. The injustice of it all was so patent.

But why, I am wondering some more, did I not feel like writing? As I’ve said, I felt so many people were writing to you. You had no need for any letters from me. Also my way of caring was action - the updates.

My father and I, on the other hand, would talk. Actually, from when I was a teenager, I remember so many heated discussions. From as an adult, I remember more listening to him, his often talking about memories from his boyhood.

I think that a way I find it natural to “talk” - to express myself - is through my writings.

I have more of this “talking” I’d like to do right now - because I’ve been thinking about your update on what you see as Trump’s defining moment, his John Wayne moment - the assassination attempt and his rising up with Fight Fight Fight. I don’t know to what extent, if any, you’re aware of the huge range of responses there have been to that event - from certainty that it was faked, with Trump in on it - to equal certainty that it was real - plus so many analyses of the masses of ways there were security failures.

Perhaps most, I wonder if you’re not talking more about yourself than about Trump - that you are living defining moments in your life, John Wayne moments. True grit.

I’m glad to be part of this ongoing adventure.

Elsa

PS. Will I be writing more to you? My sense is my main way of showing caring is through posting the updates for everyone.

_________________________________

Here is the address to write to Reiner:

LETTERS;
JVA Rosdorf
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich
Am Grossen Sieke 8
37124 Rosdorf
Germany

postcards and cards allowed,
no glitter on the envelops,
no stamps or money in the envelops,
no books or other objects - not permitted,
nothing to be mentioned about the case - though now, according to the latest information, his mail is no longer scanned,
put your name of each page of the letter, just in case - though at present letters are no longer taken out of the envelops.

_________________________________

TO DONATE:
To donate, here is the link for donations for legal and other expenses: https://www.givesendgo.com/GBBX2

FURTHER TRIAL DATES for REINER FUELLMICH:
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Wednesday July 31, 2024
Tuesday August 6, 2024
Wednesday August 14, 2024

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Previous trial days:

Day 01 Wednesday 31.01.2024
Day 02 Friday 02.02.2024
Day 03 Wednesday 07.02.2024
04th day Tuesday 27.02.2024 instead of Wednesday 14.02.2024
05th day Friday 01.03.2024 instead of Tuesday 20.02.2024
06th day Tuesday 05.03.2024 instead of Friday 23.02.2024
07th day Friday 08.03.2024
08th day Tuesday 12.03.2024
09th day Tuesday 02.04.2024
10th day Wednesday 03.03.2024
11th day Friday 19.03.2024
12th day Wednesday 24.03.2024
13th day Friday 03.05.2024
14th day Tuesday 07.03.2024
15th day Friday 17.05.2024
16th day Monday, June 10, 2024
17th day Wednesday, June 12, 2024 - cancelled due to KW’s illness
supposed to be the 18th day: Thursday, June 20, 2024 - not as scheduled due to non-appearance of both of Reiner’s lawyers
18th day - Wednesday, July 10, 2024
19th day, Friday, July 12, 2024 (half day)
20th day, Friday, July 19, 2024 (half day)
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8 trial days so far on a Friday = half a trial day (until noon)