Philip Klever

Philip Klever (* 1985 ) is a German electrical engineer and former first lieutenant in the Bundeswehr , who in 2013 refused to work in the war in Afghanistan because of what he believed was being mixed up with Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) for reasons of conscience .

Life

Commitment and study in the Bundeswehr

Philip Klever comes from the Suedbayerisches and undertook in July 2004 for the twelve year career of the officers of the military service of the Air Force and studied from October 2005 to May 2009 Electrical and Information Technology at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich in Neubiberg. During his studies, he completed an internship at the Kathrein works in Rosenheim. As a pre-graduate student of his course, the Bundeswehr München eV and the affiliated institute ITIS eV financed a three-week trip to the USA in 2008.

After completing his studies as a qualified engineer, he went through military training with the Electronic Combat Leadership Battalion 922 in Donauwörth . In March 2012, he was transferred to the Center for Electronic Combat, Flying Weapons Systems (ZEK FlgWaSys) in Kleinaitingen near Augsburg, where he worked in the area of electronic support measures (EloUM) for the twin-jet multi-role fighter Eurofighter Typhoon .

Order to deploy abroad

Refusal to use Afghanistan

In December 2012, Klever received the order to go on the German deployment abroad to Mazār-i Sharif in Afghanistan from July to November 2013 in order to coordinate disruptive flights by the US Air Force . Strategic jammers (jammers) are used in the areas overflown to prevent cell phones or radio equipment from being used in the areas overflown. He suspects that it is about the military and secret service counter-terrorism .

Klever refused this order in February 2013 because - as he had learned through self-study - the aircraft he was to control there operate from the multinational Al Udeid air base in Qatar, where there is no clear separation between the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is taking place. He referred to the fact that the multinational OEF mission, unlike ISAF, has no UN mandate and was only mandated by the German Bundestag from November 16, 2001 to June 29, 2010 . He described his deployment order as illegal and justified its non-execution with the fact that following this order would result in a violation of international law and he could not reconcile it with his conscience .

Publication of his case

The political television magazine Panorama reported on his case on May 30, 2013. On the same day, the Darmstadt Signal, associated with the peace movement, expressed its solidarity with Klever in a press release. On June 1, 2013, he informed the Berliner Kurier : “I don't want to be involved in the killing”. The conversion of the Bundeswehr to an operational army should be viewed critically. In an online interview with KenFM from July 2013 - which he had not coordinated with the Bundeswehr beforehand - he stated that he was aware of at least three previous cases of refusal to order in connection with the Afghanistan mission. In August 2013, the peace activist and Lieutenant Colonel a. D. Jürgen Rose in the pacifist and antimilitarist two-week publication Ossietzky under the title Conscience is no disease, two contributions to the Klever case.

Reaction of the Bundeswehr

The Bundeswehr accepted his refusal because his reasoning was "sufficiently probable". Klever was then released from all of his previous tasks under the pretext of "care", had to move into a one-man office and was entrusted with the preparation of a "reflection essay" about all activities in the unit, his superior said literally: " Write down how the 'steam engine' works. ”He was given a laptop with the inscription HUMBUG instead of - as is customary in the unit - a term from Greek mythology . Two weeks after his case became known, it was also decided not to fill the post in Afghanistan that the highly specialized Klever was unable to fill in the future. After going to the press, he was forbidden to enter his former office or to have personal contact with his comrades, as he would distract them from their work and negatively influence them. The official reason was that one had to "preventively prevent that [he] could influence other comrades with an opinion". In addition, because of a violation of the barracks' ban on photography , he was deprived of any further security-sensitive activity.

According to Jürgen Rose , after Philip Klever's interview with NRhZ-Online , the German Armed Forces opened a disciplinary investigation against him for breaching the duty of confidentiality ( Section 14 (1) SG).

Premature end of service

Klever left the Bundeswehr prematurely in September 2013 - instead of completing his term of service until 2016 - after a corresponding application had been granted. Since then he has been working as an electrical engineer in the private sector.

Travel blog and videos

Klever has been running the public travel blog killerwal.com since 2007 , which is visited by around 100,000 people per year. Some of his bilingual travel videos and his instructions for creating time-lapse videos in HDR received a similar number of views . In 2011 he contributed the guest article Der Urlaubsretter and the Internet for the RTL format Der Urlaubsretter , which was processed in a satirical and critical way by the Internet project TV Critique TV . In the same year he won first place in the 5th Swiss Videographer Film Contest with the short film Building 159 .

Web links

Commons : Philip Klever - collection of images, videos and audio files

Johannes Jolmes: Schikane: Dealing with critical soldiers , panorama report from May 30, 2013
Travel blog killerwal.com - Package holidays | Low cost airlines | City trips

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ Interview with Philip Klever at KenFM

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Philip Klever's profile on XING

↑ Michael Brauns: Achievement is worth it: 13 best intermediate diplomas on a discovery tour in the USA , Hochschulkurier No. 33, December 2008, p. 29 ( PDF ; 2.7 MB).

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Jürgen Rose : Conscience is not a disease , in: Ossietzky 16/2013.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Peter Kleinert: Lieutenant Klever does not want to take part in the war on terrorism , in: NRhZ-Online , July 24, 2013.

↑ ^a ^b Dirk Johannes Andresen: Bundeswehr Oberleutnant refuses deployment in Afghanistan , in: Berliner Kurier , June 1, 2013, p. 3.

^ German OEF contribution in the Horn of Africa ended , einsatz.bundeswehr.de, Djibouti, June 29, 2010.

↑ Johannes Jolmes: Schikane: Dealing with critical soldiers , panorama report from May 30, 2013. (Panorama manuscript as: PDF )

↑ ^a ^b Bundeswehr comrades stand behind Lieutenant Philip Klever . Press release of May 30, 2013 by the Darmstädter Signal working group ( PDF ).

↑ German refuses service in Afghanistan , in: Express , June 1, 2013.

↑ Jürgen Rose: Conscience is not a disease (2) , in: Ossietzky 17/2013.

↑ Dirk Johannes Andresen: Bundeswehr officer refuses deployment in Afghanistan , in: Hamburger Morgenpost , June 1, 2013, pp. 4–5.

↑ Johannes Jolmes: End of the chicane: Refuser Klever leaves the Bundeswehr ( Memento from December 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Panorama (ARD), September 5, 2013.