Department of Defense is resisting court order over helicopter affair

In the affair about the son of Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) flying with him in a government helicopter, her ministry has lodged a complaint against a decision by the Cologne Administrative Court. This was done within the deadline, a ministry spokeswoman told the dpa news agency on Tuesday evening.

The court decided at the end of August that the SPD politician had to answer certain questions about the flight from a journalist. The dispute is now before the Higher Administrative Court in Münster. Business Insider was the first to report the complaint.

In mid-April, Lambrecht took her 21-year-old son with him on a government helicopter flight to visit troops in northern Germany. The next day and after an overnight stay in a hotel, the car and bodyguards drove to the nearby island of Sylt. The ministry points out that Lambrecht duly applied for the flight and paid the full cost. The son had published a photo of the flight on his Instagram profile.

The journalist wanted to know how much time passed between booking the hotel on Sylt and scheduling the visit to the troops. He also wanted to know what knowledge Lambrecht had about the taking of the photo and its publication, in particular whether she had taken the photo of her son in the helicopter herself.

Lambrecht rejected this on the grounds that it affected her as a private person. The journalist then submitted an urgent application to the Cologne Administrative Court.

The court ruled at the time that Lambrecht did not have to answer the question about when the hotel was booked because it was really her private matter. But things are different when it comes to questions about the creation and publication of the photo. There is an official connection to the Bundeswehr here, since the journey was made by helicopter.