The slightest hint of flirtation between a bank and politicians is detrimental to democracy. Olaf Scholz accepts that, is annoyed by questions about Cum-Ex and cleverly fools the public.
Olaf Scholz is a lucky guy. This Friday he is to testify again as a witness before the Hamburg investigative committee on the Cum-Ex scandal, and this week of all times the public prosecutor’s office in the Hanseatic city had good news for him: they rejected a lawyer’s complaint that they were not investigating the chancellor. A criminal procedural initial suspicion is not recognizable. The message immediately went through the country: “No suspicion of Scholz in the Warburg case.”
No suspicion? In a criminal sense, that may be true, at least at this point in time. But the decision is not a clean bill of health for Scholz either. First, the finding came from the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office, who for years did not consider it necessary to investigate the dubious cum-ex deals with which the Warburg Bank and competitors in the Elbe metropolis made millions. The procedure lies with the prosecution in Cologne, which is working up the affair meticulously.
And secondly, criminal law is not the only criterion for assessing political action. Other things also play a role, such as honesty and trust. It doesn’t look good for Scholz. The suspicion weighs heavily on him that he is hiding his knowledge of the affair. His tactic of pretending to be at the forefront of those willing to reconnoitre and simultaneously lighting smoke screens no longer works.
At his summer press conference, Scholz, who was Hamburg’s governing mayor at the height of the cum-ex scandal, explained with a view to his upcoming testimony: “I have commented on these things very extensively and for many hours and will do so again. I have given the information that is possible.” At the same time, he “friendly” pointed out that all investigations for two and a half years had “always produced the result” that there had been no political pressure on the decision of the Hamburg tax authorities to waive taxes of 47 million euros in favor of the Warburg Bank in 2016 and a year later to claim another 43 million euros only because the Federal Ministry of Finance insisted on it.
The statements, which sounded like now-is-but-something-good-with-the-cum-ex crap and were garnished with an indirect threat to a journalist who dared to ask him, the chancellor, questions about the Getting nervous shows Scholz’s cleverness – nothing more. Because why the federal state he governs wanted to give a total of 90 million euros from dubious transactions that have since been declared illegal to a private bank, which donated several tens of thousands of euros to the SPD, is still unclear today.
“Very extensive and many hours of taking a stand” means nothing if you act like Scholz. It remains to be seen whether he really “given the information that is possible”. For a long time now, the chancellor’s repeated statement that “politics had no influence on decisions made by the financial authorities” has not been reconciled with the gigantic gaps in his memory. On the one hand, he wants to know exactly what happened, so to speak, in order to be able to come to the rock-solid conclusion that nothing was done. On the other hand, Scholz claims not to remember the contents of the three conversations with Christian Olearius, an owner of the Warburg Bank.
Two meetings between the two, which Scholz – already irritated – only admitted after written evidence appeared, took place in the immediate vicinity of the decision as to whether the bank had to pay millions to the state or not. Olearius rushed to Scholz and talked to him for a long time – and the Social Democrat didn’t want to keep anything from these conversations in his head. This memory lapse is anything but believable. So a chancellor who lies? The Hamburg CDU has been assuming this for months.
In any case, Scholz’s behavior is not transparent. Apparently he doesn’t know anything like political responsibility. The SPD politician will survive the scandal. Finally, it is also possible that Scholz really did not know what the Hamburg tax authorities were doing. But doubts are not only justified, they are growing, especially since the Social Democrats are fueling them with pseudo-openness, an ironic grin, basta announcements and verbal slip-ups to journalists.
Details are already coming out every week that shake his statement that politics did not stand by the Warburg Bank. It is a one-off occurrence for the public prosecutor’s office to search the inbox of an incumbent Chancellor, even if it concerns emails from his time as head of government in Hamburg. As early as April, the Cologne investigators confiscated the e-mail inbox of Jeanette Schwamberger, the chancellor’s office manager and close confidant.
Above all, however, the suspicion is confirmed that Scholz is keeping important things behind the mountain. As the “Stern” reported, citing the secret protocol of a confidential meeting in the Bundestag Finance Committee in July 2020, Scholz stated at the time that he “only heard Christian Olearius’ point of view”. And he completely forgot the content? Inconceivably.
The FDP and the Greens had demanded the disclosure of the protocol before the general election. Today they are silent about it in order to preserve the already shaky coalition peace. This is understandable, even if it is difficult to accept. Because Germany cannot afford a government crisis in these times. Nevertheless, Scholz finally has to break his silence – also because of the more than 200,000 euros in cash that were discovered in a safe deposit box belonging to Hamburg’s Social Democrat Johannes Kahrs, who also had contacts with the Warburg Bank.
You have to believe Scholz when he says he has no idea what the money is all about. But what the chancellor should know: every semblance of bargaining between a bank and a party at the expense of taxpayers fuels prejudice against politicians, promotes contempt for the state and thus harms democracy. And that’s why he finally has to break his silence.