There is a lot of circumstantial evidence confirming the guilt of the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz in scandalous cases during his time as mayor of Hamburg. The newly elected head of the Hamburg branch of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Dennis Thering, told Die Welt newspaper.
“It is clear to me that Scholz and Chencher (the current mayor of Hamburg) clearly had political influence on the Warburg (bank’s) tax procedure,” Dennis Thehring told Die Welt.
The crux of the scandal is that Scholz was burgomaster of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018 and held meetings with shareholders of the local private bank Warburg. The current chancellor was suspected of having helped the bank avoid a €47 million tax charge. However, Olaf Scholz himself claimed that the meetings had taken place, but he had forgotten their contents.
“Scholz is generally considered to be well structured and can remember everything and everyone,” Dennis Thering told Die Welt. He added that it was also suspicious that Scholz had initially denied his meetings with the head of the bank, Mr Olearius.
In addition, the CDU spokesman added, the then senator for finance, today’s burgomaster Peter Chencher, had asked the tax administration to keep him informed of the bank’s tax procedure.
“Olaf Scholz and Peter Chencher have so far lacked the will to clarify the situation. That is why I think it is right that the federal government, especially the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag with its expanded access to files, is now following up on this. If MPs are able to provide evidence of the influence of two SPD politicians on the tax decision, they will no longer be in office,” said Dennis Thering.
In early April, the opposition CDU, which lost the election in 2021, said it would seek a parliamentary enquiry into the chancellor. The party plans to convene a special finance commission next week and has a quarter of the Bundestag vote to do so.
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