Why maglevhub.com Stays Neutral
magnetbahn.de, the platform maglevhub.com is derived from, has been an independent platform with a clear focus on maglev trains since its founding in 2020. The commitment to technical depth, political neutrality and technological openness has guided it from the start and shapes the platform to this day. That will not change in the future.
magnetbahn.de, the platform maglevhub.com is derived from, has been an independent platform with a clear focus on maglev trains since its founding in 2020. The commitment to technical depth, political neutrality and technological openness has guided it from the start and shapes the platform to this day. That will not change in the future.
Politically neutral from the start
This commitment to neutrality has been actively lived for years. Since 2020, I have sought contact with all relevant political actors, and the following list reveals only a few of the many examples:
In 2020, I approached the then Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) and received a dismissive reply based on technically incorrect counterarguments. In 2021, I contacted Christian Lindner (FDP, the liberal Free Democrats) after he spoke positively about the Transrapid on a ZDF program, without any reaction, as with inquiries to Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the SPD as a whole.
In 2023, I spoke with Bundestag member Gitta Connemann (CDU), who is now a state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and told me openly that the Transrapid was politically finished for good.
In 2023, I repeatedly sent inquiries and invitations to Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) about the test track in Lathen or about talks in Berlin, but received no reply at all. At the same time, in 2023, I worked with the Greens in Hamm on amendments to include maglev trains in the party platform, which were rejected at delegate conferences two years in a row!
In 2024, I supported local chapters of the Young Liberals (especially in Bremerhaven) and helped Volt Deutschland draft a position paper on the use of maglev trains. All this effort... evidently led to nothing there.
In June 2025, after more than 5 years of activism, I made another attempt to get federal-level political engagement with the petition and the future of the Transrapid.
All parliamentary groups represented in the German Bundestag, as well as all members of the Transport Committee and the Petitions Committee, were contacted and invited to a handover. The result was clear: the majority of members of parliament did not respond at all or explicitly declined.
Positive and supportive responses came exclusively from the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which got back to me through several members independently of one another and signaled at short notice its willingness to jointly accept the petition.
Outside the AfD, only Ruppert Stüwe (SPD) expressed interest in a handover and told me that a Green member of the Bundestag was also interested, without giving me a name.
On the basis of these responses, a date was quickly agreed with the AfD group, so that the handover of the petition package could take place in Berlin on June 27, 2025.
As early as June 25, 2025, I transparently informed Mr. Stüwe that the handover would first be made to AfD members of parliament. His office manager, in a reply email the same day at 4:53 p.m., raised no concerns about this and said he wanted to arrange a separate appointment independently.
At the beginning of July, the planned handover date was canceled one day beforehand. Media reports, including from the TAZ (a left-leaning German daily), present this sequence in a distorted way and ignore central facts and the chronology in order to construct a false mood against me.
In some cases I am accused of my “cooperation” with the AfD harming the Transrapid. As literally the only person in all of Germany who has sought contact with politicians so intensively in recent years, I have to say from experience:
What harms the Transrapid is only that ALL other parties have distanced themselves from the Transrapid for years and completely ignore or reject any activism for it. If political actors now try to blame the AfD for the fact that people distance themselves from maglev trains, that is a blunt lie and slander.
Neutral platform, personal consequences
As a politically neutral activist, I could not have imagined at the time what personal consequences this neutral engagement of mine, born of a belief in democracy, would bring.
As a result, I was removed from my board positions in the Transrapid supporters' association I had co-founded, my working-student arrangement with my employer could not be continued, and I found myself exposed to a large number of partly absurd hate messages, which even the NOZ (a regional newspaper in Lower Saxony) reported on.
In view of how political neutrality, openness and willingness to engage in dialogue are lived in practice, I decided for myself to go my own way as a private individual.
This step is the result of years of concrete experience. For maglevhub.com, however, it has no impact whatsoever. Reporting continues to be fact-based, technology-oriented and independent, covering initiatives, statements and developments of all relevant actors, regardless of which political direction they come from.
What happens next for me
I have deliberately decided to continue my work for maglev trains undeterred, despite media-constructed controversies.
The fact is: for the Transrapid, practically nobody campaigns. Polemical or distorting reports change nothing about that, and they will not stop me from carrying on.
Over several years, the work on magnetbahn.de gave rise to the idea for “Zukunft Fernverkehr” ("Future of Long-Distance Travel"). Since 2023, I have been preparing this initiative for incorporation as an association, together with more than 50 committed supporters from different political directions.
We are united by a common goal: to think about long-distance travel in Germany again openly, with a focus on technology and without ideological blinders.
Precisely because this cause matters more to me than any personal role, it was clear to me from the start that the initiative must be set up independently and autonomously, also independently of my person.
For this reason, I will recommend another, highly committed person for the chair who will take over the leadership. For time reasons, I myself am running as deputy chair to continue supporting the initiative on substance without tying its development to my person.
The fact that one party engages with a topic more strongly or earlier than others does not mean, however, that I am fundamentally averse to other parties or rule out cooperation. On the contrary: my approach was and is open to all actors represented in parliament. If other parties have a problem with that, the problem lies not with me but in their own political decision to close themselves off to the topic.
