"And your bosses bought that shit from him?"

The Claas Relotius affair is told in the media. If the media industry thinks so, Der Spiegel hopes. The forger was caught at the end of 2018, followed by the news magazine itself and other media dealing with the scandal. Then came a book by Juan Moreno, whose research ultimately brought Relotius down. Then the filming by Bully Herbig last year. Now follows a documentary film, which can be seen on Sky Documentaries and the Wow streaming service from March 24th.

A bit late, one could say, a little over four years after the unveiling. And then you look at Invented Truth, the film that Daniel Sager made about the case - and you come to the conclusion that it can't be too late to make and see a film like this. Because the counterfeiting scandal surrounding Claas Relotius, who invented more than 60 reports in part or in full, is more topical than ever. It is only in retrospect that it becomes clear how great the failure of the “Spiegel” and of the media industry as a whole was.

Although this is not a new finding, as almost all those involved have repeatedly spoken out on their own behalf with such almost clichéd allegations, the true extent of the aiding and abetting of fraud, which is believed to have been largely unknowing but not through no fault of their own, is being revealed this documentary clearly. The certain time interval does not lead to a different, new insight into the case and its protagonists. Rather, the insights already gained are reinforced in such a way that in the end the bewilderment of the first few months, in which people were asked how such fakes could ever get through the "mirror" test and appear, is even surpassed.

Sager, who has already made a journalism documentary with "Behind the Headlines", spoke to a number of those involved, of course with Juan Moreno and "Spiegel" editor-in-chief Steffen Klusmann, but also with less obvious witnesses. Among them Dennis Betzholz, a journalist who lost out to Relotius in the race for a job at “Spiegel”. Asia Haidar, a journalist from Syria who researched a story together with Relotius and was then booted out by him. Citizens of the small town of Fergus Falls, which Relotius portrayed, or rather: hallucinated. And Tim Foley, the "real" member of a border patrol, whom Relotius allegedly accompanied on his forays into no-man's-land to Mexico, but never actually saw him.

The story of the reportage "Jaegers Grenz", in which Foley appears as a character who was, so to speak, hijacked by Relotius, is central to the Herbig film adaptation. In the documentary, it is just one of several stories Sager pursued in various locations in the US and Iraq. In these places he met people who, in the face of the brazen lies, have one question above all - why it was possible for them to be printed at all. Although there were even indications that something could not be right, long before Relotius was exposed as a forger.

Notes like those from a freelance cameraman in Iraq, who found out in 2017 that Relotius could not have had a conversation he described with a boy for the story "Lion Cubs" in a prison - but "Spiegel TV" apparently believed the man not.

At the end of a good 90 minutes, one is all the less inclined to attest to the fact that "Spiegel" actually did everything to adequately process this counterfeiting story, which was catastrophic for the entire media business. The publisher did not file a lawsuit against the former employee. One of Relotius' former superiors, Ullrich Fichtner, continues to work for the newspaper. His colleague Matthias Geyer, who was last head of department at Relotius, agreed on a termination agreement with the “Spiegel”.

The documentarist responsible for Relotius was taken into early retirement. The list of people who did not give an interview for this documentary, either declined or did not respond to requests at all fills two screens. The motto seems to be: Let the editor-in-chief, who had nothing to do with the matter, talk and at least officially close the matter.

At the end of the film, however, speaks a “compliance investigator” named Paul Milata, whose company, according to the website, deals with “white collar crime”, i.e. economic crime. The processing of the case by a commission, of which two members as employees of "Spiegel" found themselves in a conflict of interest, was "far removed from the normal procedure", judges Milata in the film. And even before the enlightenment, the magazine did not follow up on specific tips from Juan Moreno for around “four or five weeks”, although it would have been possible. Milata's conclusion: "The mirror should have done more with this information."

For obvious reasons, one may see things differently in the “Spiegel”. But the name Relotius will always be associated with the magazine. It's a burden like an obligation. A while ago, the editor-in-chief had to admit that several reports about a refugee girl who died trying to escape at the Greek-Turkish border were probably incorrect. This girl probably never existed. The case is different - but it is noteworthy that these texts published online had never seemed to have been checked by the news magazine's documentation until there were indications of doubts about the portrayal.

The achievement of the film "Invented Truth" produced by Kinescope for Sky is that it soberly shows how many alarm bells were ignored in the Relotius years. For various reasons. The function of the film is therefore to reflect the media industry as it failed in the face of supposedly perfect reports. Again and again, with every single report by Claas Relotius, which was not only printed but also awarded prizes. What did Tim Foley say to the camera when Juan Moreno gave him the report "Jaegers Grenz" to read? "And your bosses bought that shit from him?"

In 2021, Relotius himself gave a major interview to the Swiss magazine “Reportagen”, for which he had written himself. But he didn't want to answer Daniel Sager's questions in front of the camera. "I tried to get in touch with him, and we were always in loose contact during the development phase," says Sager. "For me personally, it was important to give him the opportunity to present his point of view. As the main character of the scandal, which he happens to be, I wanted to give him the chance to explain himself - but he didn't want to take it." That too - a missed opportunity.