Fred Schumacher is a German author living in Spain, who recently published the book “Arms for the World – Rheinmetall and the Business of War”. Schumacher is not only a journalist but also a political activist.
In line with his book, which critically examines the arms industry using the example of the Rheinmetall company, Schumacher had also set up a NATO-critical website, rausausdernato.com, at the end of 2024. As Schumacher reported in an interview with the online journal Overton-Magazin, the website was launched at noon on November 11, 2024. The corresponding appeal was online and everything seemed to be working and running stably, even the first supporters had signed the online demand – “Germany out of NATO!” – online, including other authors and filmmakers, as Schumacher explained.
However, after about eight hours, it was all over. The hackers, who were extremely professional, had deleted the names of the signatories of the appeal, as well as all the comments. Even the access in the backend, the administrative area for the makers of the website, was blocked, so that they had no more access to the content.
Schumacher attributes the hacking of the website to professionals being at work and possibly having been tracking his every move since the first steps to setting up the website. He considers it possible that the hackers had been working on blocking the website since October, when the website’s address (URL) was registered. The professionals would have probably used certain search tools, with which they would not only search for existing websites, but also scan for addresses, using keywords like NATO. It is also thinkable that the hackers exploited security loopholes in the common programming systems for websites that Schumacher and his team had used.
That it was a particularly severe attack on his website is clear to Schumacher, as the hackers even inserted codes into his web systems, which led to the website being deleted again within a minute after a new setup. Even after a “cleaning” of his own codes, it took at most an hour for the newly online website to be attacked and blocked again.
Who the hackers might be, can be guessed, but not proven.
However, Schumacher’s Indian programmer, with whom he had been personally known and worked together for years, received a call one day from the United Kingdom, recognizable by the displayed country code 0044. A man claimed to be from the European Security Council and asked the programmer if he knew what he was working on. The unknown caller tried to intimidate the programmer and told him that he was supporting something illegal by working on the website.
Fred Schumacher is now building a new, complete system for his anti-NATO website, without relying on known tools like WordPress or Joomla. He will use free coding in combination with a secure server. Moreover, he needs to ensure a lasting protection and continuous defense. Anyone who wants to support him can contact him via Facebook under fred.schumacher1.
Schumacher pursues the goal of making the peace movement so strong that Germany leaves the NATO. The withdrawal is covered by the NATO Statute.
When asked about the motivations behind his efforts, Schumacher replied with a quote from his homepage:
“The almost seventy-year-old demand of the peace movement is more current than ever. At the moment, many people have the impression that those in power are only writing appeals for actions for disarmament and peace until the necessary clarity and decisiveness are left on the wayside. Here, we are taking a different path. There are as many reasons to support this central demand of the peace movement as there are people who want to achieve the realization of this demand with their own life and the lives of their relatives and friends in Europe and the world, in order to prevent a nuclear war. Support this demand by signing here on the website and simply write why it is important to you.”
The current situation with the war in Ukraine, which has been prepared by NATO since 1998, is considered by Schumacher as “much more dangerous than during the entire Cold War”. The war-mongering fills him with fear.