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Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg before his questioning in the Wirecard committee
Photo: Michele Tantussi / dpa
On March 26, 2020, an opinion piece with the title “A virus called short sales” will appear in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
In view of the corona crisis, it proposes a ban on short sales for "systemically important industries", including payment service providers.
The author, as it stands under the text, is "Chairman of Spitzberg Partners and was Federal Minister of Economics and Defense".
What is not there: At this point in time, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was also working for the payment service provider Wirecard, which collapsed three months later in the biggest financial scandal in post-war history.
Wirecard was targeted by speculators at an early stage, but then benefited from a short sale ban on its shares imposed by the financial supervisory authority BaFin.
Was the “FAZ” comment a commissioned work for ex-Wirecard boss Markus Braun, whom Guttenberg said he met four times?
It is one of many leads that the committee of inquiry into the Wirecard scandal follows on Thursday and on Friday night.
This time it's about Wirecard's contacts in German politics and people like Guttenberg who threaded them.
Their greatest success was Wirecard's takeover of the Chinese company AllScore.
Chancellor Angela Merkel personally campaigned for the business on a trip to China - after she had spoken to Guttenberg about it shortly before at a meeting.
As a lobbyist, Guttenberg seems to have been quite successful.
But the ex-minister does not like this praise.
"I don't see myself as a lobbyist," says Guttenberg, 99 percent of the relevant inquiries were rejected by Spitzberg.
He wrote the "FAZ" commentary on his own initiative.
The visit to Merkel was also a "meeting without an agenda," at which the Chancellor came up with the subject of China on her own.
Guttenberg said he had always had an extraordinarily trusting relationship with Merkel.
"I would never risk this trust for a client!"
But that's exactly what happened.
Guttenberg was harnessed to the cart by fraudsters - and with him, apparently, the federal government.
How could that happen?
Guttenberg essentially gives two answers.
On the one hand, like many others, he relied on the official responsible people who approved Wirecard's numbers for years.
"After all, I am responsible for a consulting company and not for BaFin or an auditing company."
The second answer is more subtle: Guttenberg speaks to individual committee members about their past: The SPD MP Cansel Kiziltepe used to be at Volkswagen, the Green MP Danyal Bayaz at the management consultancy BCG, the FDP chairman Florian Toncar sat on the board of directors of the state bank KfW.
Guttenberg probably wants to signal that close contacts between politics and companies are normal in this country.
Flanking in the party dictatorship
The Ministry of Finance argues similarly.
In an exporting nation like Germany, the government now has to help companies gain access to foreign markets.
All the more so in a centralized party dictatorship like China, where little happens without political support.
"We are relatively open as an economy," says Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary and right-hand man of Olaf Scholz the committee.
"But they do not have this same access in China." Support as in the case of Wirecard is "one of the usual measures to promote foreign trade."
Wirecard was still enjoying this support at a time when there were critical reports and warnings about the business model.
But even that is not an exclusion criterion, argues Schmidt.
If all those who had been investigated had been sorted out before trips abroad with DAX companies, "they could have emptied a third of the plane".
From the point of view of damaged Wirecard investors, the fact that others also have dirt on their hands is not a satisfactory explanation.
Especially since in retrospect even lobbyist Guttenberg reported warning signs.
His first meeting with Braun was an "astonishingly remote conversation", during which the Wirecard boss successfully offered him the Du.
He was also surprised when Wirecard was advised on blockchain technology by Spitzberg Partners.
It was believed that a high-tech company was familiar with the subject.
But "those who hired us were clueless."
The German embassy in Beijing was also clueless about Wirecard's machinations for a long time.
A German-Chinese financial dialogue was organized there, during which an agreement on market openings that was important for Wirecard was reached.
The embassy's financial attaché kept in close contact with the company and received its representatives at home.
This is not uncommon, explains the officer who was also summoned to the MPs.
Embassy staff are "expected to give such receptions".
Recommendation from the plane
And that he expressly promised Wirecard further support from Schmidt?
Also standard, says the diplomat, all other financial companies involved received the same offer.
Then, however, as before, he had to admit to the head of the auditing supervision Apas that he had bought Wirecard shares.
On June 19, 2020 - the day when CEO Markus Braun resigned.
Why this purchase, which turned out to be a bad investment within a few hours?
He believed that the share price would recover and "maybe just hoped that this company would be successful," says the man.
After all, Wirecard had a unique selling point in its industry.
"We only had this one company."
State Secretary Schmidt, however, claims that "Wirecard was not a particular favorite of the federal government."
In June 2019, however, he wrote his Chinese counterpart on a flight to Osaka an email that many company bosses should be happy about.
Concerned about diplomatic relations, the government had the document classified as secret; the content is known to SPIEGEL.
Schmidt wrote to his colleague, among other things, that the efforts of Wirecard and AllScore would "further develop and improve the general strength of the Chinese payments industry and provide better services for Chinese companies and consumers as well as customers around the world."
Wirecard's entry into the market could even "bring bilateral financial relations to a new high," Schmidt continued.
He concluded with the wish that his colleague »can continue to support Wirecard AG in their plans to enter the Chinese market«.
The mail was probably also so positive because it was largely based on a template from Ulf Gartzke - Guttenberg's partner at Spitzberg Partners, with whom Schmidt is on two terms.
Such takeovers do happen before, the State Secretary explains to the MPs.
He also sees no problem in this case because he has "changed essential points that make up the tone of voice."
Green chairman Bayaz, on the other hand, finds it “at least unhappy” when Schmidt uses “a template from his close friend from Spitzberg Partners as the basis for his petitioner email to his Chinese colleague”.
"The State Secretary played the postman for Guttenberg," criticizes the left chairman Fabio De Masi.
It was obviously not about just any company - after all, the Aschheim-based company had long been the first digital hope in the Dax.
"Wirecard was the diplomatic jackpot," believes De Masi.
In any case, one thing could promote the closeness between politics and companies that can be seen in the Wirecard Skadal: demands that the rules for lobbyists must be tightened.
He was in favor, said Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who does not want to be a lobbyist anyway, when he was questioned.
Collaboration: Gerald Traufetter
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