Caricature of a survey: Annoyed MPs advise Scholz to use hypnosis

Scholz appears before the Cum-Ex investigative committee not as head of government, but as a tough lawyer.

Caricature of a survey: Annoyed MPs advise Scholz to use hypnosis

Scholz appears before the Cum-Ex investigative committee not as head of government, but as a tough lawyer. The deputies cannot break through his irritating non-remembering with their questions. But nobody believes the Chancellor's conclusion: "There was nothing"?

It is exactly 5:08 p.m. when Olaf Scholz is asked if he would like to undergo hypnosis voluntarily. With that, Richard Seelmaeker, the CDU chairman in the Cum-Ex investigative committee in Hamburg, teases, one could perhaps refresh the chancellor's memory. "Thank you for caricaturing the survey yourself," said the former mayor of Hamburg pointedly.

The small exchange of blows goes to the heart of the second questioning of Scholz as a witness in the committee of inquiry into the ambiguity surrounding the Warburg Bank's tax liability of 47 million in 2016 and 2017. Because the politicians from the CDU, Greens, Left and AfD react in the hour-long Questioning in the plenary hall of the Hamburg Parliament, sometimes less, sometimes more annoyed that Scholz cannot or does not want to remember the content of three meetings with the co-owner of the Warburg Bank, Christian Olearius, over the years.

Above all, one could conclude from this whether he or his successor in Hamburg, the then Social Democratic Senator for Finance Peter Tschentscher, had a hand in the - later corrected - tax waiver. "It's frightening when he can't remember important meetings," criticizes Norbert Hackbusch from the left. On the other hand, after two and a half years of investigative work and now three hours of questioning, the chancellor is visibly tired of repeating that in the meanwhile more than 50 witnesses were questioned there was no indication of political influence. "I'm only human, too. Maybe it's time to just say: Ok, there was nothing," he replies to another question from a CDU politician.

In view of the unusually large media presence, it is also a spectacle for the grandstand in the plenary hall in Hamburg. And in the opinion of SPD chairman Mike Pein, this play is not like a criminal procedure: instead of proving Scholz's culpable behavior, the opposition demands that he, in turn, have to prove his innocence. It's about the trust in the politician Scholz that you want to shoot down. "The source of the speculation is your way of not remembering," Hackbusch justifies the approach. This is the only reason why it could be suspected that a Warburg bank, which is so important for Hamburg, might not be able to solve its problems with the help of the SPD.

Scholz, on the other hand, maintains that his political style, even as mayor, was not to make any commitments or promises in talks or even to interfere in tax cases. In the end, speculation and memory gaps and three and a half hours go in circles. Scholz, who, like all witnesses, sits in the seat of Hamburg's first mayor in the plenary hall, keeps his poker face most of the time - and gives the politician who does not fear any enlightenment because he has nothing to hide.

In reality, however, the trained lawyer sits there, who also introduces himself with the profession "lawyer" and not "chancellor". He knows the limits of what he has to say. It is almost ironic when he answers the question from the Green MP Farid Müller whether he can remember where he went on vacation in 2016, and also answered with a terse "no". In the end there is what characterizes almost every committee of inquiry - everyone emphasizes their unchanged positions in front of the cameras in Hamburg.

Scholz appears for 50 seconds and admits with a slight smile that he himself was surprised by the shortness of the meeting. "Everything is now off the table. There was nothing. There was no influence," he says and resigns. For their part, the CDU and the left are outraged - and are already working on bringing the chancellor before the committee in Hamburg for a third time.