Raimund Lutz was often regarded with awe and reverence by the more impressionable delegates of the Administrative Council.
"Raimund Lutz was often regarded with awe and reverence by the more impressionable delegates of the Administrative Council."He was frequently at the receiving end of anonymous letters from disgruntled EPO staff.
As reported by Techrights back in August 2017, in one such letter he was depicted in unflattering terms as a "Nazi Officer" allegedly in charge of the EPO's "Nazi Department".
This kind of vituperation seems misplaced because Lutz probably had more in common with the kind of morally compromised socialist apparatchik who flourished in the former East German Democratic Republic than with the jackbooted "Nazi Officers" of the Third Reich.
Sun-King Battistelli and his senior management team as seen through the eyes of disgruntled EPO staff
"In any event, the "Nazi" jibes directed against Lutz seem to have triggered Battistelli who decided to take revenge on his perceived enemies inside the EPO by smearing them as “Nazis”."What does not appear to be widely known about Battistelli is that he suffered from what has been called the "Vichy Syndrome".
Benoît Battistelli's father, Michel, spent the duration of the Second World War safely cocooned in his grandparent's house in Pradines (Department of Lot) in the territory of the Vichy State where he attended school at the prestigious Lycée Gambetta in Cahors.
Although several members of Battistelli's family in the paternal line, including his grandfather Georges Henri Léon Battistelli, served in the French military during the First World War, there is no record that any family member served in the French Resistance or in De Gaulle's Free French Forces.
As a matter of fact, it is known that Battistelli's grand-uncle Charles Robert Battistelli, a cavalry officer who died in 1937, was closely associated with the ultra-nationalist, pro-monarchist and anti-Semitic group Action française.
Action française was at its most prominent during the 1899-1914 period but it still enjoyed some prestige and support among conservative elites in the inter-war period. During the Second World War, Action française sided with the Vichy Regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain. This gives some idea of the political milieu in which Battistelli's family was embedded.
A full exposé of Battistelli's "Vichy Syndrome" would go beyond the scope of the present series but we hope to cover it in more detail at a later date. It is mentioned here en passant because it may help to explain the absurd theatrics which he indulged in by playing the role of the EPO's "Nazi-hunter-in-chief" in defence of Lutz.
Battistelli's actions in this regard seem to have been some kind of clumsy and deranged attempt to compensate in public for the private shame of his own Vichyist family background.
At any rate, it is clear that during Lutz's tenure as Vice-President of DG5 he enjoyed Battistelli's protection and favour as one of his master's most loyal and subservient chamberlains.
In addition to regular excursions to Saint-Germain-en-Laye to attend Annual Trilateral Conferences and other junkets hosted there by deputy mayor Battistelli, Lutz was also able to indulge in frequent foreign travel on "duty missions" to IP extravaganzas around the globe from Berlin to Beijing and beyond.
During his time as EPO Vice-President, Lutz was regular attendee at IP extravaganzas around the globe from Berlin to Beijing and beyond
epo.org link) to his original five-year appointment in order to allow him to remain at the EPO until the end of 2018.
"As Lutz departed from the EPO, staff were heard to emit an audible collective sigh of relief."And so it came to pass that at the end of 2018 Lutz sailed off into the sunset with a well-padded retirement package: a juicy public sector pension from the German state for previous service in the Justice Ministry and Federal Patent Court, supplemented by a generous "top-up" courtesy of the EPO's managerial compensation fund, in recognition of his seven-year stint as Vice-President of DG5.
As Lutz departed from the EPO, staff were heard to emit an audible collective sigh of relief.
However, their joy was tempered by the realisation that things were unlikely to change for the better as his successor entered the EPO premises via the organisation's notorious revolving door.
"In the next part we shall turn our attention to this second member of the Tweedledum-Tweedledee duo responsible for derailing the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's efforts to reform the EPO's data protection framework in 2015."That successor was none other than Dr Christoph Ernst who - by a curious coincidence - had previously succeeded Lutz as the head of the German delegation to the EPO's Administrative Council almost a decade earlier. Ernst soon became a lapdog of António Campinos, whom he had failed to oversee at the Administrative Council. A reward?
In the next part we shall turn our attention to this second member of the Tweedledum-Tweedledee duo responsible for derailing the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's efforts to reform the EPO's data protection framework in 2015. ⬆