Guest article by Gabor Steinart: Something is rotten in the State: The dark role of Scholz and the banker in the ex-cum scandal
A dark parallel to Shakespeare's drama runs through the Federal Republic. The disastrous combination of the Federal Chancellor and the Hamburg private bank in the Cum-Ex scandal has the characteristics of a real scandal. But the big shots come out unscathed.
The dark scene takes place near Elsinore Castle in Denmark, where the ghost of the recently deceased King Hamlet appears to the guard. The circumstances of the actual death are unclear. Revenge, intrigue and madness reign at court. The spirit warns of the spread of evil.
The guard Marcellus feels uncomfortable. He senses the coming disaster and exclaims:
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
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Shakespeare's drama about the moral depravity of the authorities can also serve as a parable for the events of the Federal Republic of 2024. Anyone who observes the murky interaction between the Hamburg private bank MMWarburg & CO and the then head of the city and today Federal Chancellor, whose constitutional process has not yet been successfully addressed, will hardly achieve better results than the security guard Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Germany.
As in Shakespeare's tragedy, an almost impenetrable fog of personal connections and political dependencies surrounds the Enlightenment, which cannot thrive in this climate. Even 18 years after the crime, there are victims but no perpetrators. There are tens of thousands of pages in the files, but no convictions.
The prosecution has accused Christian Olearius of particularly serious tax evasion in 15 cases, which resulted in fiscal damages of around 280 million euros between 2006 and 2019. The case was dismissed yesterday “because the defendant is not fit to stand trial,” the judge announced.
Demons seem stronger than the purifying power of the rule of law. All of these modern demons have names, faces and addresses.
#Olaf Scholz and political madness
Olearius met the future chancellor three times in 2016 and 2017, when he was still Hamburg's first mayor. At first, Scholz did not remember the meetings and his memory was only refreshed by the diary entries of Christian Olearius.
However, the exact content of the meetings is still unknown, as Scholz and Olearius now admit to the meetings themselves, but remain silent about the content. The truth is that the tax authority, then subordinate to the SPD Finance Senator and today First Mayor Peter Tschentscher, after these three meetings withdrew the additional tax claim of 47 million euros and, according to the legal situation, the claims were time-barred. At the time.
The current Federal Chancellor has no memory of what happened. Questioned by the Hamburg investigative committee, he refused to comment.
Olearius' diary can be considered the only contemporary testimony. Describe how the bank describes to the head of government his suffering over back taxes. He literally says:
“They don't promise us anything, nor do we expect or demand anything. I could contact you at any time; he hopes the same in this matter. (…) I think I can interpret his reserved behavior in such a way that we don't have to worry.”
#The traffic light coalition and its vow of silence
Olaf Scholz and his trusted man, Chancellery Minister Wolfgang Schmidt, managed to get both the constitutional party FDP and the Greens, who experienced their first big moment with Otto Schily in Flick's investigation committee, to take a vow of silence.
The result: the traffic light coalition, with its parliamentary majority, rejects the commission of inquiry proposed by the CDU/CSU in the German Bundestag. The SPD parliamentary group also prefers to fight “against the right” than for the right. Now the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe must decide whether this educational work, which was prevented by a majority decision, is legal or illegal.
The Union request clearly states the federal political importance of this committee:
“A chancellor involved in the illegal suppression of fiscal demands would no longer be politically viable.”
Karlsruhe is expected to make a decision in the coming months.
#Olearius and health problems
Meanwhile, the main accused, Christian Olearius, has withdrawn from the matter after submitting a medical report. The court-commissioned medical report found health problems that could lead to life-threatening illnesses if the process continues.
Specifically, the judge mentioned Olearius' elevated blood pressure in the courtroom on Monday. There is an acute risk of suffering a stroke or another heart attack. The 82-year-old's health situation was not explained in further detail to protect his personal rights.
According to experts, Olearius could only be questioned for 45 minutes a day. Given the complexity of the proceedings, this in turn would mean that he would have to be at the disposal of the court for another three years, the judge calculated. This is considered unreasonable. The Olearius case was thus closed on Monday.
#The prosecutor and her bad suspicions
The role of security guard Marcellus in this tragedy of the Federal Republic is played by senior prosecutor Anne Brorhilker. She headed the cum-ex case handling department of the Cologne public prosecutor's office and indicted Christian Olearius in July 2022. In April 2024 she resigned from public service, claiming that things are not going well in the constitutional state.
In the interview with Die Zeit, published this week, he also fuels the suspicion that the constitutional state deliberately turns a blind eye to tax fraud committed by prominent figures, supported by international law firms. Finance Minister Christian Lindner has announced the creation of a Federal Financial Crimes Office, “but,” says Brorhilker, “the crime of tax evasion is unfortunately not part of its competence.”
In this way, the true authors and people behind the tax fraud called Cum-Ex cannot be caught, of which Olearius is the tip, but not the iceberg. The old tax fraud would continue today in new variants. She literally said on the day of her resignation:
“You hang the little ones and let the big ones go.”
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Conclusion: The Chancellor has no memory. The banker's heart races. The prosecutor deserts. And the government decides that it would rather endure the conditions than change them. There are enemies of the constitutional State that are not controlled by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Something is rotten in the state of Germany. Or to say it with Hamlet:
“Betrayal! Find where he is!”