By Viviane Fischer
Key Points at a Glance
Note for readers:
The following section summarises the central and particularly contentious issues addressed in this article. Readers short on time will find the decisive facts here. Given the sensitivity of the matter and the significant legal, financial, and tax-related risks involved, all aspects are subsequently examined in detail and with the necessary degree of legal care.
1. The Starting Point: Earmarked Donations — Not Funds for Private Disposal
Since 2020, the Corona Committee has received donations amounting to several million euros. These donations were earmarked for investigative and educational work — not for the private use of the individuals involved. From the outset, it was agreed that these funds would be administered on a fiduciary basis and later transferred into a charitable foundation.
To this day, this transfer into a foundation has not taken place. Instead, unresolved questions remain regarding asset ownership, responsibility, and liability — with growing risks for all parties involved, and in particular for the donor-intended use of the funds.
For the past three years, the Corona Committee has been supported by my charitable foundation. However, the earlier structure dating from 2020–2022 still formally exists and continues to hold substantial assets. The separation between the current operational structure and the persisting legacy structure gives rise to the blockages described below.
2. A Key Event Outside the Committee: The Class Action Loan
A central background factor behind the current impasse lies in the class action initiative.
According to the findings of the Göttingen Regional Court, Reiner Fuellmich received a loan of €500,000 in early 2021, arranged by attorney Marcel Templin. This money was not used to advance the class action but to repay a private real estate loan owed to Warburg Bank.
There are strong indications that these funds originated from money paid in by participants in the class action. If so, a substantial portion of the class action funds would have been privately consumed at a very early stage. As a result, only around €200,000–300,000 of the original €1 million may have remained available for the actual class action — an amount clearly insufficient to realistically pursue an international class action.
These events were never transparently investigated afterwards, yet they continued to exert influence in the background.
3. The Sale of the House and Enforcement of the Land Charge
In December 2022, attorney Marcel Templin received €1.158 million from the sale of Reiner Fuellmich’s house — almost the entire sale proceeds. Reiner Fuellmich himself received only approximately €170,000.
Formally, this payment was based on the enforcement of a land charge. However, several critical questions remain unresolved to this day:
- Which specific claim was actually secured by this land charge?
- Was Marcel Templin acting in his personal capacity or on behalf of the class action partnership?
- Why was an amount far exceeding the originally repaid €500,000 collected?
- And why has Reiner Fuellmich never legally challenged this enforcement?
In a later judgment, the Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig did not examine these questions. Instead, it focused solely on the assertion that the class action participants had not suffered any damage because the invested capital had “almost doubled.” Whether this alleged “doubling” occurred at the expense of Reiner Fuellmich or indirectly also at the expense of the Corona Committee remained unanswered.
4. Consequences for the Corona Committee
Against this backdrop, the key question is who knew what, and when.
If Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer were already aware in early 2021 of the circumstances surrounding the class action loan and of Reiner Fuellmich’s private financial difficulties, they would have been obliged to inform me. In that case, they should in particular not have allowed Reiner Fuellmich shortly thereafter to operate a lawyer’s escrow account for the Corona Committee’s donations.
Had I possessed such knowledge, I would neither have entrusted Reiner Fuellmich with a liquidity reserve nor agreed to his management of an escrow account holding Committee funds.
Even if such knowledge was obtained only later, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer would still have been under a duty to inform me. They would also have had to examine whether and to what extent Marcel Templin, within the framework of the class action partnership, had complied with his information obligations and whether any breaches might give rise to claims for damages.
5. Instead of Clarification: Withdrawal, Criminal Complaints, and Escalation
According to their own statements, when Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer became aware of potential irregularities within the Corona Committee in the summer of 2021, they initially requested access to the Committee’s books. After what they regarded as insufficient disclosure, they proposed a settlement under which half of the Committee’s assets would be allocated to them.
Rather than assuming responsibility and taking obvious steps — such as freezing accounts, demanding information, or initiating legal measures to secure the funds — the implicit message conveyed was that this was the price to be paid to prevent further pursuit of uncomfortable questions. Reiner Fuellmich and I rejected this proposal as contrary to both purpose and statutes.
Subsequently, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer withdrew completely for several months. When I informed them in the summer of 2022 about outstanding claims against Reiner Fuellmich and worked on potential solutions, they did not participate in these discussions.
On September 2, 2022 — coinciding with a public hint made by me — Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, together with attorney Marcel Templin, filed a criminal complaint against Reiner Fuellmich. Toward the end of the year, a criminal complaint was also filed against me.
In July 2024, I was reported for alleged misappropriation of gold. After the public prosecutor’s office initially discontinued the investigation, Justus Hoffmann lodged an appeal against that decision.
6. The Current Focus: Excluding Me Instead of Securing the Funds
At present, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer are focusing almost exclusively on my exclusion from the company and on asserting alleged claims of approximately €1.5 million against me personally.
At the same time, in my view, urgently necessary measures are not being taken:
- Securing potential claims for damages against multiple parties (with limitation periods expiring at the end of 2025),
- Clarifying the ownership of money, gold, and receivables,
- Addressing missing documentation for bank accounts and cryptocurrencies,
- Minimising significant tax and liability risks,
- Making funds accessible for essential archival work.
7. The Core Dispute: Authority to Dispose of the Funds
Justus Hoffmann has repeatedly stated that the earmarking of the funds is not “set in stone” and could potentially be altered. In more recent discussions, it was suggested that donors had already “received enough Committee work for their money.”
I firmly reject this view. The earmarking of the funds for investigative work does not arise merely from internal agreements or from the statutes of the interim Corona Committee gUG, but primarily from the will of the donors themselves. The donations were clearly made for a specific purpose. From any legal perspective, private disposal of these funds is therefore impermissible — regardless of the legal form involved or whether it ever validly came into existence.
Moreover, it remains unresolved whether the never-registered interim gUG — later considered a civil law partnership — ever validly became the owner or even trustee of the funds. This preliminary question of authority to dispose of the assets has not yet been conclusively clarified, yet it is being implicitly assumed by Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer.
8. What Is Now Necessary from My Perspective
To prevent further damage and ensure that the donations are used in accordance with their intended purpose, I consider the following steps indispensable:
- The immediate transfer of all funds, gold, and existing claims into a charitable foundation, involving all potentially relevant persons and entities, in order to avoid prolonged and costly litigation;
- Full documentation and transparent clarification of the use of funds to date, including unresolved issues concerning bank accounts, cryptocurrencies, and payouts;
- Prompt safeguarding of all potential recourse claims before limitation periods expire;
- Ending the internal blockades so that the Corona Committee can once again focus on its actual purpose: investigative work.
9. Why This Article Is Being Published
Internal attempts at clarification, deadlines, and requests for information have so far produced no substantive response. Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer were given the opportunity to comment on the issues raised here; no substantive reply had been received by the editorial deadline.
The public — and in particular the supporters of the Corona Committee — have a legitimate interest in understanding why key questions have remained unresolved for years, and who or what is blocking the Corona Committee.
Part 2: Chronology and Background
- 1. The Origins of the Corona Committee
The Corona Committee was founded in July 2020. In its early phase, the public-facing work was carried out primarily by Reiner Fuellmich and myself, with attorneys Dr. Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer participating intermittently in the recorded sessions for approximately one year.
Together with Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, I am a shareholder of the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation), which was established in July 2020 but never registered. Initially, all of us also formale served as managing directors of this entity. In December 2022, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer removed me from the management. Since then, they have been running the inactive, unregistered company on their own.
It has now become apparent that over the past three years, essential management duties were not performed. This has created substantial risks for both the financial basis of the Corona Committee and for me personally. To date, no solid documentation exists that would allow for a proper tax assessment — most notably, complete bank statements are missing.
The adhesion claim filed in connection with the criminal proceedings against Reiner Fuellmich became moot due to his personal insolvency. Whether any payments will ultimately flow to the Corona Committee from his insolvency proceedings remains unclear.
Despite this, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer now intend to sue me personally for approximately €1.5 million. I am expected — and I alone — to pay amounts that Reiner Fuellmich himself has not repaid to this day.
While I consider the prospects of success of such claims against me to be low, it is evident that they will consume considerable time, energy, and financial resources. At the same time, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer are refraining from pursuing far more promising claims against other parties — including potentially against themselves — even though such claims are at risk of becoming time-barred by the end of 2025. This would effectively mean abandoning claims on behalf of the Committee while simultaneously cutting off my ability to seek recourse.
In addition, they are now making determined efforts to exclude me entirely from the company. I am currently defending myself in two legal actions against what I consider to be an exclusion resolution that was either secretly adopted or not adopted at all at the end of 2024.
Such an exclusion would have dramatic consequences. At precisely the moment when the Committee’s funds — including gold now valued at more than €2 million — should finally be transferred into a foundation, I would be stripped of all control and self-help rights needed to protect the donated assets.
If things proceed according to the plans of Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, the Committee’s gold and any remaining receivables of the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) would soon be under their exclusive control — the control of two individuals who, during their time with the Committee, made at most a contribution in front of the camera, but remained largely inactive behind the scenes. For more than four and a half years now, they have not carried out any recognisable investigative work.
2. The Dispute Over the Purpose of the Funds
Justus Hoffmann has repeatedly expressed the view that the charitable purpose enshrined in the statutes of the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) is not immutable and could, in principle, be altered. According to this line of reasoning, the question of how the funds might be used was at times framed primarily as a tax issue.
In my view, this perspective fundamentally misses the legal core of the matter. It presupposes that a private allocation of the funds would be permissible in the first place. In reality, only a fiduciary form of administration is even conceivable — and it remains unclear whether such fiduciary authority could ever have been exercised by the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) at all.
3. The Criminal Complaint Concerning the Gold
The immediate trigger for the current escalation was a criminal complaint filed by Justus Hoffmann on July 30, 2024, in the name of the Stiftung Corona Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation) with the public prosecutor’s office in Göttingen. The allegation was that I had attempted to misappropriate gold belonging to the Committee.
The alleged act of misappropriation was said to consist primarily in the fact that, before the criminal court in Göttingen, I raised the question of whether the Committee’s funds and gold truly belonged to the never-registered interim gUG or whether they should instead be attributed to a trust structure that may have existed earlier or in parallel — a structure whose mandate was precisely to ensure that the funds were used in accordance with the donors’ intentions and transferred into a foundation.
According to Justus Hoffmann’s interpretation, merely raising this question amounted to an attempt to deprive the interim gUG of its assets. It is worth noting that within the interim gUG — and only within that structure — Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer are majority shareholders and hold effective decision-making power.
4. Why the Question of Asset Allocation Was Necessary
The correct allocation of assets is decisive not only for internal governance but also for liability and tax obligations. If funds are disbursed by an entity that later turns out not to have been authorised to dispose of them, this can have serious civil and even criminal consequences.
I am not prepared to bear such risks. For that reason, I consider a factual and legally binding clarification of asset ownership to be indispensable before any further access to the assets is permitted.
The public prosecutor’s office initially discontinued the investigation, as it found neither intent nor an act of breach of trust. Justus Hoffmann filed a complaint against this decision and, in doing so, introduced the allegation that there had been a so-called “black fund” in connection with the Committee’s gold. This allegation is currently the subject of the pending review proceedings. A substantive assessment of the underlying facts and their legal evaluation has therefore not yet been completed.
However, it is noteworthy that in July 2025, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, acting through legal counsel, declared in a civil proceeding between us that Reiner Fuellmich had informed them in a telephone call in August 2021 about the acquisition of gold. According to their statement, this information was provided shortly after the purchase and referred to “a bit of gold.”
This declaration stands in clear tension with later allegations suggesting that the acquisition had taken place entirely without their knowledge.
I responded comprehensively to the criminal allegations directed against me in the spring of 2025. The proceedings are still ongoing. Any substantive assessment of the accusations remains the responsibility of the competent prosecuting authorities.
5. Additional Allegations and Escalation
In his criminal complaint, Justus Hoffmann also alleged that I “claimed” a residence in Switzerland. I do not have such a residence. Nevertheless, on this basis, he suggested to the public prosecutor that my assets should be seized.
In May 2025, I took this complaint as a starting Point to request the convening of a shareholders’ meeting of the Vorschalt gUG (in formation). My request contained a number of pointed — and undoubtedly uncomfortable — demands for information and called into question the shareholder position of Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer due to what I consider to be breaches of fiduciary duty, including the filing of a criminal complaint without any prior attempt to clarify the facts with me.
6. A Secret Exclusion From the Company?
To my great surprise, Justus Hoffmann then informed me that I had allegedly been excluded from the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) in December 2024. I was told that an invitation to the shareholders’ meeting, together with documents relating to Reiner Fuellmich’s insolvency proceedings, had been sent to me by registered mail. As purported proof, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer presented extensive photographic documentation showing the alleged process of placing the invitation into an envelope.
Previously, it had been common practice to send invitations to shareholders’ meetings not only by post but also by email and messenger services, and to coordinate availability in advance. For a decision as far-reaching as an exclusion, it would have been obvious to ensure receipt through multiple channels or even by service via a bailiff.
In reality, the registered letter I received contained no invitation to a shareholders’ meeting. Whether the invitation was actually enclosed is disputed between us. What is undisputed is that I demonstrably became aware of the alleged invitation and agenda only after the fact.
An effectively excluded shareholder loses all information and participation rights and can neither pursue claims nor initiate measures in the interest of the company. All the more striking is the fact that, according to Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, the minutes of the alleged exclusion resolution were sent to me merely by ordinary mail. In a case of this significance, proof of service would have been of particular importance, as statutory challenge periods depend on it.
Adding to this is the fact that, following the alleged exclusion, no steps were taken that would normally be expected if such an exclusion had actually been effective. In particular, I was never asked to surrender access to the Committee’s gold — even though my alleged “gold misappropriation” was cited as a key reason for the exclusion. This conduct raises further questions about how the alleged exclusion resolution was actually treated and understood by those involved.
Part 3: Legal Assessment — Asset Allocation, Liability, and Limitation Risks
1. The Interim Judgment and Its Legal Premises
I initially challenged my alleged exclusion from the company by way of interim legal protection. The first-instance judgment was surprising in several respects.
The court assumed that the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation) no longer existed as such, but had instead become a civil law partnership (GbR), on the grounds that the registration of the gUG had not been seriously pursued since the end of 2023. At the same time, the court held that the statutes of the inactive interim gUG continued to apply to this newly classified partnership — without any renewed confirmation by the shareholders.
On that basis, the court applied the short, statute-based time limit for challenging resolutions of a gUG, rather than recognising that, under German law, resolutions of a civil law partnership are generally subject to no fixed limitation period.
This assumption of continued applicability of the statutes was made in summary proceedings, without a thorough examination of the complex issues of company law involved and without the taking of evidence that would normally be required.
2. The Alleged “Settlement” as a Basis for Asset Allocation
The court further assumed that a settlement proposal submitted by Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer in December 2021 — under which half of the Committee’s assets and substantial intangible values were to be allocated to them — had conclusively established the allocation of assets to the Vorschalt gUG (in formation), now classified as a GbR.
I consider this assumption to be incorrect. The proposal was never accepted, neither by Reiner Fuellmich nor by myself. On the contrary, it was explicitly rejected as contrary to the statutes and to the purpose of the donations.
From a legal perspective, an unaccepted settlement proposal cannot establish asset ownership, nor can it retroactively legitimise a private allocation of earmarked donations.
3. Dispute Value and Procedural Pressure
Based on these assumptions — and on the further, equally incorrect assumption that I had sought a declaration that I was not obliged to grant access to the gold — the court set a dispute value of approximately €640,000.
This would result in attorneys’ fees of more than €60,000 for the three lawyers acting as counsel — Justus Hoffmann, Antonia Fischer, and Marcel Templin — to be borne by me, in addition to court costs of around €14,000. This in a proceeding in which I myself asserted no personal economic interest in the assets.
In comparable exclusion disputes, dispute values are typically set at around €10,000. The effect of the court’s approach is therefore to create substantial procedural pressure through cost exposure.
We have filed an appeal against the judgment and a separate complaint against the dispute value.
It is noteworthy that, after issuing the judgment, the presiding judge transferred to a different division. No causal connection is alleged. In practical terms, however, this means that our application for correction of the factual findings will only be addressed at the appellate level, again involving significant additional costs.
4. The Shareholders’ Meeting Marathon
Despite claiming that I had already been excluded from the company, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer scheduled twelve shareholders’ meetings between 18 November and 30 December 2025, each time “without recognition of my shareholder status.”
The repeated agenda item was, once again, my exclusion from the company.
Two of these meetings have already taken place, without any new exclusion resolution being adopted. A significant portion of the meeting time was instead spent by Justus Hoffmann reading aloud passages from the criminal judgment against Reiner Fuellmich and discussing them with me. From my perspective, this did not serve the clarification of corporate law issues.
After I submitted proposed additions to the agenda for the third meeting — including items concerning potential claims for damages against Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer themselves, as well as the urgent need to safeguard claims facing imminent limitation — Justus Hoffmann cancelled six already scheduled meetings. On the same day, however, he convened four new meetings.
These, once again, focus on my exclusion and on authorising Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer to pursue claims against me personally in the amount of approximately €1.5 million.
I consider this practice — the repeated convening of meetings with essentially identical exclusion agendas — to be abusive and harassing. This is particularly so given that I attend these meetings with legal counsel in order to secure a proper record, incurring significant personal expense.
5. Failure to Secure Claims and Open Asset Questions
What stands out is that Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer have focused almost exclusively on my exclusion, while failing to take any discernible steps to prevent the limitation of potential claims against various parties by the end of 2025.
In my view, this includes, in particular, potential claims for damages against:
- Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer themselves,
- their law firm partner, attorney Marcel Templin,
- attorney Tobias Weissenborn,
- and Inka Fuellmich.
It would also be necessary to examine whether and to what extent the professional liability insurance policies of the attorneys involved could be invoked.
At the same time, fundamental questions remain unresolved regarding the tax treatment of the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) — or the structure now classified as a GbR — assuming it was ever authorised to dispose of the donated funds at all.
To this day, essential bank statements are missing, in particular for the lawyer’s escrow account held by attorney Tobias Weissenborn and for another escrow account held by Reiner Fuellmich.
The bookkeeper involved, Jens Kuhn, has also failed to provide any verifiable and complete documentation of cryptocurrency inflows. My request for disclosure in August 2022 resulted only in the transmission of three Excel spreadsheets containing partial, non-verifiable data. The cryptocurrencies themselves were not handed over at that time. Since then, no further clarification steps appear to have been taken.
According to Jens Kuhn, total cryptocurrency donations amounted to only around €6,000 over the entire period. Given the overall donation volume, this figure at least requires explanation. From a tax perspective, such discrepancies are potentially significant, as tax authorities may resort to estimated assessments where documentation is incomplete — even if the underlying income never actually existed.
6. Risky Proposals and Misplaced Focus
Instead of addressing these issues, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer proposed dividing the Committee’s gold among the three shareholders, allegedly for safekeeping against potential tax claims.
I consider this proposal to be highly risky. As long as the assets remain within the company or trust structure, potential tax liabilities can be settled directly. Once the assets are divided — even nominally for safekeeping — the remaining shareholders bear the risk that one party may dissipate their share or become insolvent. In such a case, the others would be left to cover any outstanding tax liabilities.
Such a division would therefore not only risk violating the donors’ intended purpose but would also expose the shareholders to additional default risk and appears counterproductive even from the standpoint of personal tax protection.
Part 4: The Class Action Loan, the Land Charge, and Potential Liability of Third Parties
1. Potential Claims Arising from the Class Action Loan
From a legal perspective, potential claims for damages against Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer may arise from the fact that, as members of what Justus Hoffmann himself described as a “tax-law internal partnership” (Innen-GbR) of the class action initiative, they knew — or at least should have known — that Reiner Fuellmich received a loan of €500,000 from attorney Marcel Templin in early 2021.
According to the findings of the Göttingen Regional Court, this loan was apparently agreed only orally. At the same time, an existing private mortgage loan of Reiner Fuellmich with Warburg Bank was repaid in a comparable amount.
Already in November 2020, Reiner Fuellmich had received a further loan of €100,000 from attorney Marcel Templin, acting on behalf of the class action interest group. The purpose of this earlier loan is not know to me.
The Göttingen Regional Court concluded in its criminal judgment that the €500,000 loan “probably” originated from the class action context. This assessment appears plausible in light of the overall circumstances.
2. The OLG Braunschweig Judgment and Its Implicit Assumptions
In its judgment of 23 August 2023, the Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig prohibited Reiner Fuellmich from claiming, in connection with attorney Marcel Templin, that the latter had misappropriated or embezzled client funds exceeding €1 million.
The court based this decision on the assumption that the class action participants had not suffered any loss, as the invested funds had remained available after repayment of the loan — and had even increased in value.
However, if it had been substantiated in the proceedings that the loan had originated from purely private funds of Marcel Templin, one would have expected this decisive separation between private and class action funds to be explicitly addressed. No such differentiation appears in the judgment.
Instead, the court expressly stated:
“Insofar as the Regional Court measured this assertion against the circumstance that the claimant granted a loan to the defendant from the payments made by the clients …”
This wording presupposes a connection between the loan and client or class action funds.
Reiner Fuellmich later argued that the class action clients had “transferred” to him, thereby extinguishing any claims of Marcel Templin. Such an argument only makes sense if the claim itself originated from the class action context. In the case of a purely private loan by Marcel Templin, a change in client representation would have had no effect on the continued existence of the loan claim.
Notably, Justus Hoffmann, in his own commentary on the criminal judgment against Reiner Fuellmich, rejected this so-called confusion argument not by referring to a private loan, but by asserting that any fee claims had remained with Marcel Templin. This, again, presupposes that the claim arose from the class action context rather than from a purely private loan.
3. Unified Termination of the Loans
On 29 December 2021, attorney Marcel Templin terminated a loan of €600,000 “in connection with the termination of the cooperation regarding the Corona damages class action.”
Had the €500,000 used to repay the Warburg Bank mortgage originated from a different source than the earlier €100,000 loan, a careful differentiation between lenders and loan amounts would have been expected. The unified termination strongly suggests that both loans arose from the same economic context.
If this reconstruction is correct, only a fraction of the approximately €1 million paid in by class action participants may have remained available for the actual conduct of the class action by early 2021.
According to Reiner Fuellmich’s own account, approximately €100,000 was also paid to Jens Kuhn for registering class action participants. Additional funds may have been consumed in connection with Reiner Fuellmich’s advisory mandate for the class action, which was also terminated by Marcel Templin on 29 December 2021. The amount of this advisory fee is unknown.
On this basis, the funds available for conducting the class action may already have shrunk to approximately €200,000–300,000 by early 2021 — without even taking into account further possible costs, such as legal advisory or organisational fees. With this amount available for initiating a class action in the USA, engaging a US law firm seems to have been rather out of reach.
4. The Land Charge and the House Sale Proceeds
The privately granted loan to Reiner Fuellmich from the class action context appears — based on current knowledge — to have been secured only around two years later by the creation of a land charge on his property in Göttingen.
Crucially, the land charge was not registered in favour of the class action partnership (Sammelklagen-GbR), but in favour of attorney Marcel Templin personally. The registration occurred only shortly after the purchase agreements for the sale of the house had been concluded.
On the basis of this land charge, Marcel Templin received a total of €1.158 million from the house sale proceeds in December 2022, almost the entire sales price of approximately €1.35 million. Reiner Fuellmich himself received only around €170,000.
The amount paid to Marcel Templin was calculated from a nominal land charge of €650,000 plus 15% annual interest over four years and an ancillary charge of 20%. Formally, this corresponded to the maximum amount recoverable under the registered land charge.
What remains unresolved, however, is the substantive legal basis for Marcel Templin’s entitlement to these sums. According to the findings of the Göttingen Regional Court, the underlying loan agreement was apparently only oral and amounted to €500,000.
This gives rise to several unresolved questions:
- If the loan funds originated from the class action context, should not the class action partnership itself have been registered as the secured party, rather than Marcel Templin personally?
- If Marcel Templin acted as a representative of the class action partnership, on what basis could he demonstrate this authority in a manner sufficient for land registry and notarial purposes, given that the underlying loan agreement was allegedly oral?
- And even if one assumes in Marcel Templin’s favour that he was entitled to recover the €500,000 repayment amount, on what legal basis was he entitled to collect a further approximately €658,000 from the sale proceeds?
These questions are relevant not only for the civil-law assessment of the fund transfers, but also for determining potential recourse and liability claims in connection with the class action and the funds used for it.
5. Absence of a Security Purpose Agreement
Of particular legal significance is the fact that, according to the consistent statements of Justus Hoffmann and Reiner Fuellmich, no security purpose agreement (Sicherungszweckerklärung) existed for the land charges registered in favour of Marcel Templin.
Without such an agreement, a non-accessory land charge may not be used to enforce arbitrary claims. It must be clearly defined which specific claim is secured by the land charge.
At most, one could imagine that Marcel Templin stepped into the secured creditor position of Warburg Bank by repaying the mortgage loan of approximately €500,000. A broader security covering all claims arising from an ongoing business relationship could not have been established without an explicit security purpose agreement.
In particular, a bank cannot transfer such a wide-ranging security position to a non-bank creditor – like Marcel Templin – without a corresponding agreement.
If no security purpose agreement existed, the additional approximately €658,000 paid out to Marcel Templin would have lacked legal basis. Only if it were to emerge that such an agreement did exist — contrary to current representations — could a different legal assessment apply.
It is therefore striking that Reiner Fuellmich has, to date, not brought any legal action against Marcel Templin for restitution of the allegedly unjustified amounts — neither with regard to the surplus of approximately €658,000 nor with regard to the entire sum paid out under the land charge.
This is all the more remarkable given that Reiner Fuellmich has repeatedly publicly asserted that the class action clients had transferred to him and that he was therefore entitled to the earmarked funds.
A lack of financial means alone cannot explain this inaction. Even insolvent debtors may apply for legal aid where there are reasonable prospects of success — an option that would have been available to Reiner Fuellmich at the latest after the opening of his insolvency proceedings in 2024.
Part 5: Knowledge of Financial Risks, Escrow Accounts, and Missed Interventions
1. Known or Obvious Financial Difficulties
If Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer were already aware in early 2021 that Reiner Fuellmich had repaid his private mortgage loan with Warburg Bank not through ordinary bank financing but through earmarked funds from the class action context, this would have had immediate and far-reaching consequences for how he should have been handled within the Corona Committee.
Either Reiner Fuellmich was unable to obtain a regular bank loan — which would point to serious creditworthiness issues — or he demonstrated an extremely unconventional approach to handling earmarked third-party funds. In either case, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer would have been obliged to inform me.
With such knowledge, I would never have entrusted Reiner Fuellmich shortly thereafter with the second tranche of the Committee’s liquidity reserve in the amount of €500,000 on a fiduciary basis. I would also have recalled the €200,000 already entrusted and would not have permitted Reiner Fuellmich to operate a lawyer’s escrow account for the Committee’s donations.
Especially in the presence of known or foreseeable financial difficulties, it would have been imperative not to grant an individual sole access to substantial donated funds.
2. Failure to Intervene Despite Concrete Red Flags
Even as events progressed, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer did not address the specific circumstances of the class action loan. If they themselves had truly been unaware initially, they would have been required — upon later learning of the facts — to confront their law firm partner, attorney Marcel Templin, and, if necessary, pursue claims against him for any resulting damage to the Committee.
In that scenario, Marcel Templin might bear responsibility for the fact that Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, lacking knowledge of Reiner Fuellmich’s financial situation, did not oppose his management of a lawyer’s escrow account for Committee funds.
It was precisely through this escrow account that Reiner Fuellmich later paid himself substantial monthly sums for an alleged “email service” — without prior coordination and without transparent oversight. It remains unclear whether this work was ever actually performed.
These payments, too, could likely have been prevented had the financial difficulties and the origin of the class action loan been disclosed in a timely manner.
3. Claimed Suspicion, but No Adequate Response
According to their own statements, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer claim to have become aware of possible irregularities within the Committee in August 2021. However, they never specified what those irregularities were supposed to have consisted of.
They limited their response to requesting access to the “books of the Committee,” without subsequently taking any discernible action.
Had they at that point actually assumed responsibility for managing the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation) and attributed the assets to that entity, concrete steps would have been mandatory: immediate safeguarding of accounts, introduction of joint signing authority, demands for documentation, or — in the presence of serious suspicion — judicial measures to secure or recover assets.
None of this occurred.
Instead, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer withdrew entirely from operational responsibility. They later justified this withdrawal by alleging threats from Reiner Fuellmich. This explanation is unconvincing. Both are experienced attorneys, demonstrably capable of defending themselves legally against actual threats. Their willingness and ability to do so is evidenced by the fact that they filed criminal complaints against Reiner Fuellmich in September 2022, repeatedly filed complaints against me, and have actively pursued numerous defamation and injunction proceedings.
4. Withdrawal After Rejected Settlement Proposal
The complete withdrawal of Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer after the rejection of their settlement proposal therefore raises serious questions. It suggests that, at that time, they themselves did not regard the trust assets as falling under their responsibility.
It is possible that they assumed the assets were not attributable to our joint company at all, given the absence of the asset allocation they had sought to establish through the settlement proposal.
This interpretation is also reflected in their own language. In an addition to the agenda of a shareholders’ meeting scheduled for 21 November 2021, they explicitly referred to Reiner Fuellmich and me — in contrast to themselves — as the “active managing directors.”
Were they therefore “inactive” because they believed that no action was required for an unregistered interim company? And if so, why did they nevertheless accept that, during this period, significant liability and tax risks could arise without their awareness?
This stance stands in clear tension with the substantial tax and liability concerns that Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer later repeatedly cited as the motivation for their settlement proposal and their desired access to the assets.
5. Criminal Complaints Instead of Internal Resolution
This apparent lack of responsibility for the fate of the Committee’s funds is further reflected in the fact that, from 23 August 2022 onwards — after being informed of the relevant events (private spending of € 700.000 in Committee Funds by Reiner Fuellmich plus €650.000 in Law Office Bills with no recognizable benefit for the Committee) — Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer deliberately refused to participate in internal discussions aimed at clarification and resolution.
They stated that their participation would “intimidate” Reiner Fuellmich and that joint discussions were therefore doomed to fail from the outset.
In retrospect, this position is unpersuasive. A determined and unified approach by all responsible parties — not only by me and others close to the Committee, but also by Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer — could well have contributed to an internal resolution and possibly prevented a public financial scandal.
After nearly eight weeks of unsuccessful discussions, I made a public reference to “irregularities” within the Committee on 2 September 2022, in an effort to prompt Reiner Fuellmich toward a constructive solution.
This step had an immediate effect. Shortly thereafter, Reiner Fuellmich agreed to store the gold with Degussa. Until then, the gold had been kept — without my consent — in a safe deposit box registered in the name of the bookkeeper.
On the same day, however, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer — without my knowledge — jointly filed a criminal complaint against Reiner Fuellmich together with their law firm partner, attorney Marcel Templin.
This temporal coincidence raises serious questions. The early involvement of law enforcement effectively cut off any remaining possibility of a completely internal resolution, while at the same time drawing the attention of state authorities to the Committee’s financial structures at a very early stage.
6. Consequences of Early Criminalisation
For me personally, this approach created significant risks. Had I, at that point, entered into a formal or substantively untenable compromise — for example by retroactively justifying the use of the liquidity reserve for an alleged “US Committee,” despite knowing that the funds had been used differently — I would have exposed myself to considerable criminal liability under the scrutiny of an already involved public prosecutor’s office. What Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer of course did not know: I would have never aggreed to a foul compromise. However, totally legitimate compromises could have been also reached like that Reiner Fuellmich would give the Committee a land charge on this house to secure its repayment claims.
In any case, the complete refusal to engage in solution-oriented discussions allowed Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer to draw a clear line: they could later claim not to have been involved in any internal clarification attempts and point to their criminal complaint as proof that they had had nothing to do with the events.
Whether this course of action truly served the interests of the Committee and its donors is at least questionable — particularly given that, in the further course of events, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer took no steps to safeguard the Committee’s interests with regard to the proceeds from the sale of Reiner Fuellmich’s house. On the contrary, they actively accompanied attorney Marcel Templin to the notary appointment related to the transaction.
Part 6: Escrow Accounts, Gold, Liquidity Reserves, and Further Potential Claims
1. Insufficient Review of the Use of Funds
In assessing potential recourse claims, particular attention must be paid to the role of attorney Tobias Weissenborn.
In the criminal proceedings against Reiner Fuellmich before the Göttingen Regional Court, Tobias Weissenborn testified that, prior to transferring €100,000 to serve as my liquidity reserve for the Committee, he had allegedly spoken with me and asked whether I — like Reiner Fuellmich — intended to “park” the funds in a property. For what alleged purposes I wanted to use the funds Tobias Weissenborn claims not to recall.
Had such a conversation actually taken place, it would necessarily have presupposed that I was aware of the intended use of the funds by Reiner Fuellmich. This was not the case. From my perspective, the described conversation does not align with the actual course of events.
Irrespective of this discrepancy, however, a more fundamental legal question arises: Did attorney Tobias Weissenborn, as the holder of the lawyer’s escrow account into which the earmarked donations for the Corona Committee were paid, sufficiently examine whether the assumed or contemplated use of the funds — such as “parking” them in real estate or other unclear purposes — was compatible with the clearly defined purpose of those donations?
This question becomes all the more pressing given that the €200,000 from the liquidity reserve was not transferred to Reiner Fuellmich himself, but to the account of his wife, Inka Fuellmich.
Whether and on what legal basis this payment could be regarded as compliant with the purpose of the donations requires independent legal scrutiny.
2. Potential Claims Against Inka Fuellmich
Possible civil claims must also be examined with respect to Inka Fuellmich.
According to the criminal judgment of the Göttingen Regional Court, she is designated as a party jointly and severally liable for confiscation together with Reiner Fuellmich, in relation to an amount of approximately €250,000. The court found that the funds in question were jointly used by her and Reiner Fuellmich for private purposes.
If Inka Fuellmich has filed her own appeal or is not fully covered by the criminal confiscation order, it must be examined whether civil restitution claims can now be pursued against her.
3. Exclusive Focus on Me as the Alleged Liable Party
It becomes apparent that a wide range of serious and potentially enforceable claims exists. Yet all of these options appear to be disregarded by Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer.
Instead, they are concentrating their recourse efforts exclusively on me, intending to hold me personally liable for alleged claims of approximately €1.5 million.
What is striking is that, at the same time, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer repeatedly emphasise that, in their own assessment, I possess no significant financial resources. In pleadings, they assert that I am in such dire financial circumstances that I allegedly wish to access the Committee’s gold in order to finance my private apartment in Berlin.
Against this backdrop, the question arises as to why they are focusing solely on a person whom they themselves claim has nothing to offer economically.
Such an approach would only be comprehensible if the alleged claim against me were particularly clear, straightforward, and economically sensible to enforce. The opposite is the case.
4. Weakness of the Claims Against Me Compared to Other Parties
The asserted claims against me are legally far less robust than those against other parties.
It is particularly implausible that I would have been obliged, in the context of a fiduciary arrangement, to conduct an independent creditworthiness assessment of a licensed attorney such as Reiner Fuellmich — who also acted – with the consent of Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer – as the Committee’s treasurer and himself managed lawyer’s escrow accounts.
Such a duty might at most arise in the context of a private loan or in the presence of concrete indications of insolvency. No such indications were known to me. Unlike Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer, I had no knowledge of the private class action loan.
That Justus Hoffmann himself perceived a situation of significant legal risk is also demonstrated by his correspondence of 27 December 2021 in connection with his settlement proposal, in which he expressly wrote that questions of breach of trust would need to be “excluded.”
In essence, the demanded allocation of half of the Committee’s assets to him and Antonia Fischer was presented as the price to be paid for not pursuing uncomfortable questions. Where such a high-risk situation is recognised, it is not plausible to subsequently remain entirely inactive merely because the proposed division of assets was rejected.
5. Procedural Pressure and Self-Mandating
The exclusive pursuit of alleged claims of approximately €1.5 million against me therefore appears neither substantively justified nor economically rational. Instead, it threatens to impose substantial additional costs on the company — costs that, from my perspective, are likely to arise primarily from the self-mandating of Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer as attorneys.
Against this background, the question inevitably arises as to why the focus has been narrowed so one-sidedly to a single target from which no economic recovery is expected. Whether this strategy genuinely serves the interests of the company or pursues other objectives remains an open question.
What is clear, however, is that such an approach is well suited to bind me both temporally and financially, thereby impairing my ability to continue supporting the work of the Corona Committee with the necessary focus and strength.
Part 7: Asset Allocation, Purpose Limitation, and the Fundamental Question of Ownership
1. Planned Registration Without Me — and the Intended Transfer of Control
Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer currently appear to intend to register the company without my involvement and, on that basis, to establish a new foundation from which I would be excluded.
This plan is justified, among other things, by the now-familiar allegation that I attempted to misappropriate the Committee’s gold. This approach raises serious questions — not least because, over the course of more than four and a half years, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer have shown no discernible substantive engagement with the work of the Corona Committee.
Years ago, Justus Hoffmann expressly informed me in writing that he did not wish to carry out the substantive work himself and that, in his view, this responsibility lay with me.
At the shareholders’ meeting on 18 November 2025, I explicitly asked Justus Hoffmann which substantive or statutory purposes he intended to pursue with the assets. No concrete answer was given. Instead, he stated that this issue should “not be opened now.”
Given the magnitude of the assets involved, however, this is precisely the question that must be addressed.
2. Statements Suggesting a Willingness to Abandon Purpose Limitation
As early as 2022, Justus Hoffmann stated to me that the charitable orientation of the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) was not “set in stone.” In his view, a permanent binding of the funds to a charitable purpose conflicted with private autonomy.
At a meeting in mid November 2025, he went further, stating in substance that donors had already “received enough Committee work for their money,” and that the remaining funds were therefore now at the shareholders’ disposal.
These statements make clear that Justus Hoffmann fundamentally assumes that the purpose limitation of the donated funds can be altered and that private disposition may therefore be permissible.
This view, however, misconstrues the legal core of the purpose limitation. The restriction does not arise merely from internal agreements or corporate statutes; it was imposed externally by the donors themselves.
For this reason alone, a situation in which a “purpose-free pool of assets” could arise within the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) or a civil law partnership is legally impossible — assuming, that is, that the funds can be attributed to that entity at all.
Private use of the donations is therefore excluded.
3. The Preliminary Question: Was the Interim gUG Ever an Asset Holder?
The central preliminary issue is whether the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation) — or any civil law partnership allegedly derived from it — ever became the owner of the donated funds or even merely their trustee.
In my assessment, there are substantial doubts.
At no point did the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) have its own bank account. It did not appear externally — neither in legal notices, nor on letterheads, nor in email signatures. There are no shareholders’ resolutions allocating assets to the company or authorising it to dispose of such assets.
There are no deposit receipts, no acknowledgements of receipt, no physical transfers of assets — such as the gold. The so-called loan agreements that were later invoked to suggest asset allocation were expressly structured as sham transactions.
Sham transactions are void under German law and cannot establish ownership or trusteeship of assets.
While service providers’ invoices were in some cases addressed to the Vorschalt gUG (in formation), they were paid directly from the trust accounts. There was never any independent expense reimbursement or asset management by the company itself.
4. The “Preliminary Annual Financial Statement”
What does exist is a so-called “preliminary annual financial statement” for a “UG” that was never registered. This draft was prepared by Jens Kuhn, who later stated that he had never been entrusted with bookkeeping responsibilities, and it was prepared without the involvement of a tax advisor.
The document contains significant misclassifications and was never adopted by a shareholders’ meeting. It therefore has no legal effect.
The notion that such a document — informally countersigned by only two of four shareholders — could validly establish the allocation of assets amounting to millions of euros is untenable.
5. No Intention to Allocate Assets to a Non-Charitable Entity
At no point was there an intention to allocate assets to a non-charitable entity and thereby trigger substantial tax liabilities.
The shared understanding was instead to hold the funds on a fiduciary basis — and, where possible, within the tax-neutral framework of an existing charitable organisation — until they could be transferred, as planned from the outset, into a charitable foundation.
6. No Asset Allocation “by the Way”
None of us would, without compelling reason, have endowed an unregistered interim vehicle with substantial assets — a vehicle that offered neither the intended limitation of liability nor the anticipated tax privileges.
Such a transfer would, on the contrary, have created significant tax and liability risks.
The idea that we might have effected such a consequential asset allocation implicitly, casually, or merely through isolated statements — without any manifestation of intent in concrete actions, such as deposits into a company account, physical transfer of gold, or formal allocation resolutions — lies outside any plausible course of events.
This is further reinforced by the fact that statements made by all shareholders regarding asset allocation were inconsistent and, at times, contradictory over the years — including statements by Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer themselves.
7. Their Own Admissions of Missing Asset Allocation
In their settlement proposal of December 2021, Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer explicitly addressed what they themselves regarded as the previously missing allocation of assets.
In the preamble, it is stated — in substance — that only through the settlement agreement all donations were to be allocated to the assets of the debtor entity. This wording alone demonstrates that, in their own view, such allocation had not previously existed.
In early 2024, Justus Hoffmann further stated, in the context of defamation proceedings against 2020News UG, that the Stiftung Corona Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG (in formation) was assetless. This statement was made at a time when gold bars worth approximately €1.5 million — purchased with donated funds for the Committee — were stored in a vault at Degussa.
Even at that point, therefore, no asset allocation to the Vorschalt gUG (in formation) had occurred in his own assessment.
Only in mid-2024, in connection with the adhesion proceedings before the Göttingen Regional Court — and after their own adhesion claim as shareholders had failed — did Justus Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer adopt the position that the funds belonged to the Vorschalt gUG (in formation).
They now assert this view in proceedings against me, in the filing of claims in Reiner Fuellmich’s insolvency table, and in shareholders’ meetings.
Part 8: Conclusions, Risks, and the Public Interest
1. Why This Case Matters Beyond the Individuals Involved
What is at stake here is not a private dispute between former collaborators. The core issue concerns the handling of earmarked donations given in trust for a clearly defined public purpose.
The Corona Committee received substantial financial support from donors who expected transparency, accountability, and exclusive use of their contributions for investigative and educational work. Any deviation from that purpose — whether through private allocation, delayed clarification, or strategic inaction — undermines not only the Committee’s credibility, but public trust in civil society initiatives more broadly.
This case therefore raises questions that extend far beyond the individuals involved:
How are fiduciary responsibilities enforced in loosely structured initiatives?
What safeguards exist when interim legal vehicles persist without clear asset allocation?
And how can donors be protected when internal conflicts paralyse oversight and decision-making?
2. The Risk of Irreversible Damage
The continued failure to clarify asset ownership, secure potential claims, and transfer the funds into a charitable foundation creates a risk of irreversible damage.
Limitation periods for potential claims against several parties are approaching at the end of 2025. Once expired, these claims would be lost permanently — not to the detriment of any individual, but to the detriment of the Committee and its supporters.
At the same time, unresolved tax and liability issues expose all involved parties to significant legal and financial risks. In the absence of complete documentation, tax authorities may resort to estimations. In the worst case, this could result in tax liabilities even where corresponding income never actually existed.
The longer this situation persists, the greater the likelihood that donated funds will be consumed not by investigative work, but by legal costs, procedural disputes, and defensive litigation.
3. The Consequences of Exclusion Without Clarification
My exclusion from the company — if it were to become effective — would have far-reaching consequences.
At precisely the moment when decisive steps are required to protect the donated assets, I would be stripped of all information, participation, and self-help rights. This would leave the remaining shareholders in sole control of substantial assets, despite the fact that the fundamental questions of ownership, purpose limitation, and fiduciary authority remain unresolved.
Such a shift of control, without prior clarification, would not create legal certainty. It would merely consolidate uncertainty — while removing internal checks at a critical juncture.
4. What Is Required Now
From my perspective, the necessary steps are clear:
- Immediate, comprehensive clarification of asset ownership and fiduciary authority, based on facts, documentation, and legally binding determinations;
- Full transparency regarding past use of funds, including escrow accounts, cryptocurrency inflows, and payments to third parties;
- Prompt safeguarding of all potential claims before limitation periods expire, irrespective of the personal or professional relationships involved;
- Transfer of all funds, gold, and receivables into a charitable foundation, as originally intended, with appropriate governance and oversight structures.
These steps are not about assigning blame in advance. They are about preventing further damage and restoring the integrity of the project.
5. Why This Article Is Being Published
This article is published because internal attempts at clarification have failed.
Deadlines were set. Requests for information were made. Opportunities to engage substantively with the issues outlined here were offered. As of the editorial deadline, no substantive responses had been provided by Justus Hoffmann or Antonia Fischer.
The public — and especially the donors and supporters of the Corona Committee — have a legitimate interest in understanding why central questions have remained unresolved for years, and who or what is preventing their resolution.
Transparency is not an act of escalation. In a situation where fiduciary assets, public trust, and time-sensitive legal rights are at stake, transparency is a necessity.
Final Note
The purpose of this publication is not to conduct a trial by media. Legal assessments remain the responsibility of courts and authorities.
But silence, delay, and procedural obstruction are not neutral acts. Where they persist, they themselves become part of the problem.
The question therefore remains:
Who — or what — is blocking the Corona Committee?
