A man disappears, after four days he reappears drunk. The background is completely unclear. But what is explosive is that it is probably about Thorsten Kutz, the head of the Rheinmetall armaments group. His company recently made a tank offer to the federal government.

On May 13, the police published a missing persons report: “The Kassel police are currently looking for the 51-year-old missing Thorsten K.” K. had not come to work and had no private appointments. His work colleagues had therefore reported him. K. could “require medical help,” it said.

The police released a photo. It shows K. withdrawing money from an EC machine in Kassel on Thursday night. The photo also suggests that it is Thorsten Kutz, CEO of Rheinmetall since January 2022. His company had offered the federal government to prepare the delivery of 88 refurbished Leopard 1 battle tanks and 100 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine. According to “Bild”, he knows military secrets of the Bundeswehr and is said to be preparing the delivery of the Marder tanks. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is said to have classified him as a bearer of secrets.

The worries were correspondingly great. Was Kutz kidnapped? Has something happened to him? Or is it “just” a private matter?

Four days later, a sigh of relief: “Thorsten K., who had been missing since the evening hours of last Thursday, was found safely today as part of the extensive police search,” the police wrote in a May 15 report. According to “Bild”, a police patrol found him in a vehicle near the Kassel exhibition halls. Kutz was drunk and needed medical attention.

The background is still completely unclear. The BKA, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Federal Public Prosecutor and Rheinmetall did not want to comment on the “Bild” request.