Jobcenter Employee Fights for Free Speech After Firing Over ZDF Report

A long-serving employee of Bremen’s job center is preparing legal action after being summarily dismissed by the city for publicly criticizing Germany’s welfare system in a television documentary.

Fred Göcken, 60, who worked for more than two decades at the Bremen job center, told the German press agency dpa that he will contest his termination. “Of course I will fight back,” he stated, according to Junge Freiheit. He emphasized that his case concerns freedom of speech.

Göcken was fired following his appearance in the ZDF documentary “Am Puls mit Sarah Tacke – System Bürgergeld: Leben ohne Leistung” (At the Pulse with Sarah Tacke – The Citizen’s Benefit System: Life Without Performance). The program itself noted that the civil servant was “risking a lot” by participating.

Insider Claims Spending Money Is Core Mission

In the broadcast, Göcken described distributing money as the “central task” of job centers. He said this was also the internal perception within the agency itself. If applicants were placed into jobs instead of receiving support for things like driver’s licenses, “then we would be finished,” the 60-year-old said in the program.

Göcken characterized the job center system as self-perpetuating. “You would never find anyone who would admit that, not in 100 years. But the result is exactly that. That is the reality,” he said. According to the veteran employee, the agency keeps applicants in a form of permanent training. “Certainly not as a stated goal, but unfortunately that is the result.” What has emerged, he argued, is a “life alternative called citizen’s benefit.”

Claims of Widespread False Information

The whistleblower alleged that 30 to 40 percent of applicants provide false information to job centers. “The motivation of people is to stay in the system,” he stated. To address this, he said, the agency would need to start imposing sanctions. But unlike in the past, he can no longer reduce benefits when a client fails to attend appointments. “We are destroying ourselves with our own rules,” he commented.

At the time of the ZDF documentary, Göcken was working in administration at the Bremen job center after more than 20 years with the agency. He kept his participation in the public broadcaster’s program secret from his employer.

SPD Senator Denies Systemic Abuse

Following the broadcast, Bremen’s Senator for Labor, Social Affairs, Youth and Integration, Claudia Schilling of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), responded to the employee’s statements. “The claim that 30 to 40 percent of benefit recipients are abusing social benefits has no solid foundation whatsoever,” the politician wrote in an official statement, as Junge Freiheit reports. “Such blanket statements distort reality, damage trust in the welfare state, and place hundreds of thousands of people nationwide under general suspicion who receive benefits lawfully.”

Schilling argued that a “simple explanation does not do justice to the complexity of these challenges.” She added that “sustainable labor market integration often begins long before actual placement into work.”

The senator insisted that benefit fraud is “pursued and sanctioned in Bremen with the available control and audit mechanisms.” She stated that “no conclusions may be drawn about the totality of those entitled to benefits from individual cases.”

The dismissal of Göcken raises questions about the limits of free speech for public employees in Germany, particularly when their testimony contradicts official government narratives about the functioning and effectiveness of the country’s generous welfare system.

With information from Junge Freiheit