Union politicians are calling for a raid on Olaf Scholz because of the Warburg affair. It’s about tax debts in the millions that Scholz’s Hamburg government did not demand back from the scandalous bank “Warburg”. CDU politicians believe his private emails could be the key to the scandal.
The Cologne public prosecutor’s office is already investigating and noted in the files that there are indications of “specific deletions” of calendar entries by the Hamburg tax authorities and the then mayor Scholz. The investigators compared the e-mail communication with the calendar entries and found a “conspicuous imbalance”. So there were many appointments in the calendars, including Scholz’s, because of the Warburg scandal bank – but hardly any electronic traces on the subject.
That’s why politicians from the CDU and CSU are now calling for this trail to be followed, since only Scholz’s official post office box has been searched so far. Union faction deputy Andrea Lindholz said to “Bild”: “Scholz must now disclose his private e-mail traffic to the investigators.” CDU domestic politician Stefan Heck also says: “Calendar deletions are acts of concealment that must necessarily result in further investigations. “
The investigations are related to the Cum-Ex scandal, in which banks, lawyers, entrepreneurs and investors used tax tricks to cheat the German state out of billions between 2001 and 2016. By moving blocks of shares, they got back taxes they never paid.
In the investigations into Scholz, the focus is on the years from 2014 and Scholz’s role in the scandal. After several meetings with the Warburg shareholders Christian Olearius and Max Warburg in 2016 and 2017 in Scholz’s office at the time, the tax authorities had initially allowed a tax reclaim of 47 million euros against the private bank to expire. A further 43 million euros were only requested after the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Later, due to a court order, the bank had to pay back more than 176 million euros of unjustly refunded taxes.
The Hamburg Attorney General has meanwhile dismissed a complaint against the failure to initiate investigations against Mayor Peter Tschentscher and his predecessor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (both SPD). This was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency after the “Tagesspiegel” reported it. A corresponding notification was issued on August 10th.
The Attorney General’s Office rejected the criminal complaint filed by lawyer Gerhard Strate in February on suspicion of aiding and abetting tax evasion against Scholz, his then Finance Senator Tschentscher and other parties involved as unfounded, the newspaper writes (Tuesday). You have thus confirmed the view of the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office.
