Richard Seelmaecker, CDU representative in the Hamburg committee of inquiry into the Cum-Ex scandal, accused Olaf Scholz of lying. The Christian Democrat presents a reason why Hamburg left millions to the Warburg Bank. His conclusion: "It all stinks to high heaven."
Seelmaecker suspects that Warburg-Bank gave Scholz "the subtle hint" that cum-ex transactions were also being processed at HSH Nordbank. "And if the Hamburg tax authorities had demanded the money back from the Warburg Bank at the time, they would have had to demand it from HSH as well. That would have meant that politicians would have had to openly admit that they had earned millions from dubious transactions."
ntv.de: The CDU had requested that Chancellor Olaf Scholz not be interviewed this Friday, but later as a witness when the investigative committee has viewed more documents. Why was this rejected?
Richard Seelmaecker: SPD and Greens want to end the investigation as quickly as possible because they realize that it is becoming more and more of a burden for Scholz. We are gradually getting the results of the investigation from the Cologne public prosecutor's office and know even before the detailed evaluation that there is still a lot of explosiveness for the chancellor.
What material is still pending?
E-mails and other correspondence, also from Scholz's immediate environment. Apparently, not everything was made available to the investigators by the Hamburg state government and administration. That can already be seen. There are significant gaps in the data. But what we know suggests that Scholz isn't as clueless as he pretends to be.
They had already accused him of lying before the general election. In your opinion, has your suspicion been confirmed?
Absolutely. Scholz gives the company's co-owners, Christian Olearius and Max Warburg, an audience, calls them, and they know each other. Then there is a conversation about the existence of the bank. It is unbelievable that Scholz does not want to remember anything from the three personal meetings with Olearius, despite the explosiveness. I stand by it: Scholz is lying at this point. Especially since you can not view the conversations individually.
But how?
We are aware of two notes in preparation for a crucial meeting with Olearius that are contradictory. An employee of the specialist authority writes a clear warning that reads: Attention, highly dangerous, it is probably about dubious cum-ex deals. Another employee defuses the content of the assessment and puts it into perspective. Scholz does not want to know either the one or the other rating. That too is unbelievable. At the same time, the chancellor deceives the public with legal sophistry.
As the?
When he is asked whether he has ever met the Warburgers privately, his answer is: "Mr. Olearius and Mr. Warburg were never at my house." That way, Mr. Scholz doesn't answer the question incorrectly. Nevertheless, he is hiding a private breakfast in Blankenese that later became known. It just wasn't at his house. So the statement was true and yet false. He remains criminally unassailable.
Isn't that just extremely clever?
Of course he thinks so. But if you have nothing to hide, you can speak openly and don't have to act in the way Scholz has done with Cum-Ex for years. He only ever admits what can be proven to him. This creates suspicion and distrust. Actually, it's unbelievable that the man is chancellor. It all stinks to high heaven and cannot have happened without political influence.
But what should have been the motive for Hamburg to actually give a bank 47 million euros?
I don't believe that Scholz did the bankers a favor, that he may have had personal benefits from it, or that he was concerned with the donations made to the SPD. I suspect that Olearius Scholz gave the subtle hint that the cum-ex deals that Warburg-Bank undertook on a small scale were carried out on a large scale at the (now privatized - the ed.) Landesbank HSH Nordbank. And if the Hamburg tax authorities had demanded the money back from the Warburg Bank at the time, they would have had to demand it from HSH as well. That would have meant that politicians would have had to openly admit that they had earned millions from dubious deals. Scholz wanted to prevent that, I suspect. We will investigate the events.
So what did HSH do back then?
Yes. The CDU has applied for the extension of the investigation. There are clear indications that the tax authorities in Scholz's time generously let other abusive stock transactions by banks go through. The former HSH Nordbank also benefited from this, having paid back taxes and interest for cum-ex transactions of at least 126 million euros.
The FDP member of the Bundestag and financial expert Florian Toncar had described Olearius as a "ticking time bomb for Scholz". Do you share the assessment?
In any case. I firmly believe that Olearius will be convicted. He will testify in court in the hope of a light sentence. And then it looks murky for Scholz. Incidentally, Toncar was the one who called for clarification the loudest before the federal election. In his capacity as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, he could now ensure that the minutes of Scholz's statements are released in the Bundestag's Finance Committee. Apparently the coalition discipline keeps him from doing so. But that also applies to the Greens.
What do you expect from Scholz on Friday as a witness?
That he'll finally come clean and help bring the truth to light.
What are your hopes that this will happen?
Nearly zero.
Thomas Schmoll spoke to Richard Seelmaecker
