In a video posted Saturday on X, US health chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr said he had written a letter to Health Minister Nina Warken calling for an “end to politically motivated prosecutions”.
The long-time vaccine sceptic accused Germany of prosecuting more than 1,000 doctors – and thousands of their patients – for issuing exemptions from vaccines and wearing masks during the pandemic.
“The German government is now violating the sacred patient-physician relationship, replacing it with a dangerous system,” he said in the video.
“No democracy grounded in confidence and transparency should move in that direction,” he added.
Kennedy also misspelled Warken’s name as ‘Workin’ in the text attached to the clip.
Meanwhile, the German health minister rejected the accusations as “baseless” and “factually inaccurate” in a Saturday statement.
During the pandemic, doctors who chose not to offer vaccines “were not criminally liable and did not have to fear penalties”, she added.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has tested the long-standing bond between Germany and the United States.
The Trump administration has sought to bolster the leading opposition party in Germany, the far-right, anti-immigrant and Moscow-friendly AfD.
Kennedy “should deal with the health problems in his own country. Short life expectancy, exorbitant costs, tens of thousands of drug overdose deaths and murder victims,” said Karl Lauterbach, former German health minister during the pandemic, in a post on X.
