Michael Wendler is not an extremist – at least he assured RTL 2. At the request of the F.A.Z., a spokesman for the station said that Wendler wanted a new beginning with his young family. "The fact is: RTL 2 gives lateral thinker theses or other radical positions no platform," the station spokesman continued. The topic of a planned docusoap about Michael Wendler and his wife Laura Müller, which the station announced on Tuesday, was "Laura's pregnancy and the path of expectant parents to birth".
Michael Wendler had repeatedly attracted attention during the corona pandemic with conspiracy ideological statements, as well as with historical trivializations. He was banned on Instagram after referring to Germany as a "concentration camp" – Wendler later claimed that by "concentration camp" he meant "crisis center". Michael Wendler also spread a fake post in which a CDU politician was put into the mouth of a "final solution for the unvaccinated".
The broadcaster RTL had ended the cooperation with Michael Wendler, who sat on the jury of the show "Deutschland sucht den Superstar", after he had turned out to be a corona denier. According to Wendler's concentration camp comparisons, the pop star was even cut out of the already filmed episodes. At the time, the managing director of the Cologne station, Jörg Graf, said that they condemned "any form of anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination in the strongest possible terms."
Now Michael Wendler has at least announced that he will discontinue his Telegram channel, on which he has expressed his political stance in the past. Does that also mean that he has changed his attitude? He has assured RTL 2 at least.