The MDR director Wille drives the same company car model as the terminated RBB boss Schlesinger. The sender now checks the conditions and features. The resigned MDR director Hoge-Lorenz assures that she is retiring voluntarily.
After the scandal at the broadcaster RBB, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) wants to check whether the company vehicles used by its own management staff are appropriate. “After the allegations became known in the RBB and the public debate, we in the MDR also take a closer look at individual topics and facts,” said a spokesman for the “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung”. This also included the company cars. The selection of the models and equipment packages as well as the conditions agreed with the manufacturer should be checked, said the spokesman.
According to information from the newspaper, MDR boss Karola Wille has an Audi A8 at her disposal – the same model that the ARD boss and RBB director Patricia Schlesinger, who has since resigned, used. Numerous allegations have been made against Schlesinger because of the way she holds office – investigations are currently underway on suspicion of infidelity and taking advantage.
After her announced resignation as director of the MDR state radio station in Saxony-Anhalt, the journalist Ines Hoge-Lorenz described her motives again. She wanted to correct various rumors, she said in a statement distributed by MDR. “Resigning from office is my free decision. MDR director Karola Wille also assured me full support for the decision to remain in office, provided that there was full transparency towards the workforce, the committees and the public,” she wrote.
As previously announced by her, she made a “personal failure of particular importance” when she was appointed MDR director. This prompted her to voluntarily resign from office. It’s about her husband’s role in the trial now beginning against former MDR entertainment boss Udo Foht. “In 2015, my husband took responsibility for his actions at the time and accepted a fine. I did not bring this up in conversations with the director or the compliance officer. I assumed that the fine in 2015 would settle the matter for us is.”
She also did not tell MDR that her husband had been summoned as a witness in the trial against Foht a few weeks ago. “I should have made this transparent immediately.” Unfortunately, she only informed the legal department of the MDR for the first time when they asked on August 19, 2022. In her prominent position at the MDR, a lack of transparency around these issues is a “serious omission”. “Remaining in office as director would not correspond to my professional ethics or my understanding of managerial responsibility in such an exposed position.” So she is resigning from office.
The Causa Foht means a scandal that was uncovered in 2011. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the former entertainment boss Foht of fraud, breach of trust, corruption and tax evasion in connection with his professional activity to the detriment of various alleged victims. In summary, there are allegations that from February 2008 there should have been smuggling and money smuggling. According to MDR information, Hoge-Lorenz will remain active in the broadcaster, from September 1st in the main editorial office for information and innovation in the Leipzig program directorate.
