The outrage at the former RBB director and ARD boss Patricia Schlesinger is great: The 61-year-old resigned from her posts after she was accused of mismanagement and favoritism. The magazine “Business Insider” reported, among other things, on possible compliance failures.
Schlesinger’s husband received orders from the state-owned Messe Berlin, where RBB chairman Wolf-Dieter Wolf is the chairman of the supervisory board. According to “Bild”, Schlesinger also had her RBB office lavishly equipped, including a massage chair.
Several dinners at Schlesinger’s house also came to light. It is said to have been about “maintaining contacts”, paid for by the broadcasting fees. However, it is disputed that these were really business-related occasions.
The Berlin police chief Barbara Slowik, who was present at one of these dinners, presents the matter differently.
According to the “Bild” newspaper, Slowik was invited to Schlesinger along with other guests – including the former ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger and the historian Michael Wolffsohn. According to the catering company, the four-course menu with champagne and wine cost 1154.87 euros. Schlesinger had the amount refunded by the broadcaster, reports the “Bild” newspaper.
But the meeting apparently had little to do with work content. Police chief Slowik said through a police spokesman that she was “with great astonishment and irritation” when Patricia Schlesinger charged RBB for the costs. “It was in no way apparent to them that this meeting had a professional background,” said the spokesman.
Slowik and her husband had known Schlesinger and her husband Gerhard Spörl privately for a long time. According to her understanding, it was a house inauguration with friends: “The content of the conversation was also of a purely private nature.”
The public prosecutor’s office in Berlin has now started investigations against Patricia Schlesinger, her husband and head of the RBB administrative board, Wolf-Dieter Wolf, who is also the head of the supervisory board at Messe Berlin. There is an initial suspicion of infidelity and acceptance of benefits. The RBB Broadcasting Council wants to discuss a dissolution of Schlesinger’s contract on Tuesday.
Sources: “Business Insider” / “Bild” / “Berliner Zeitung” / “Tagesspiegel” / RBB
