Peter Tschentscher and the cum-ex affair: New calendar entries increase pressure on Hamburg's mayor

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SPD politician Scholz, Tschentscher: "Request for information on the state of affairs"

Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images

In the tax affair surrounding the private bank MM Warburg, new details put Hamburg mayor Peter Tschentscher and his predecessor Olaf Scholz (both SPD) under further pressure.

The question is whether at the end of 2016 you influenced the fact that the tax office spared the bank.

Both politicians deny this. Entries from Tschentscher's calendar, who was Senator for Finance at the time, now raise new questions.

For years, Warburg had received credits for taxes that had not been paid in dubious stock transactions (cum-ex).

In October 2016, the tax office asked the tax authorities for approval to reclaim a total of 47 million euros for 2009 alone.

Otherwise the thing would become statute-barred.

Thereupon the Warburg owners Christian Olearius and Max Warburg spoke to Scholz in the town hall.

more on the subject

• Peter Tschentscher and the cum-ex affair: The mayor's emails from Jörg Diehl, Annette Großbongardt and Ansgar Siemens

• Cum-ex affair around Warburg-Bank: The secret of the green inkBy Oliver Hollenstein, Oliver Schröm and Ansgar Siemens

The bankers presented the mayor with a kind of defense in which they wanted to prevent a repayment.

The paper stated that the facts were "not determined".

In addition, the existence of the bank is threatened if it has to pay.

On November 9, 2016, Scholz called the banker Olearius and advised him to send the letter to the Senator for Finance without comment.

Olearius noted this in his diary.

As a witness on the investigative committee, Scholz said that he could not remember the conversations with Olearius.

The fact that the call took place in this way is "highly plausible".

What is certain is that Tschentscher received the letter on November 9th and asked for a consultation with his advisor.

On November 14th he passed it on to his officials: "With a request for information on the state of affairs".

On November 17th, a group of officials from the authority and the tax office decided to forego a tax reclaim.

The decisive arguments were congruent with the lecture by the Warburg bankers.

Service calendar entries

Tschentscher's service calendar now shows that he telephoned Scholz on November 8th - the day before he received the Warburg letter.

For November 11, two days after receipt, an appointment with the head of the tax office is recorded in the calendar.

Subject: »Consultation«.

The head of office played a key role in the decision to go for Warburg.

A spokesman for Tschentscher confirmed the two dates.

According to the calendar, the conversation with the chief officer was scheduled "for 30 minutes" in the senator's office.

"Further information on the specific reason for the conversation, the content or the duration of the conversation is not documented," said the spokesman.

Also for the telephone call with Scholz there was no »information on the specific reason for the conversation, the content or the duration of the conversation« in the documents.

The spokesman repeated earlier statements, according to which Tschentscher was "basically informed about the tax administration's actions in significant cases."

However, he always "attached great importance" to the fact that the decisions of the tax administration were "made exclusively from a legal point of view".

As a witness in the investigative committee, the chief officer had said that she had informed Tschentscher of the tax office's intention to reclaim the taxes.

In addition, she only briefly informed him that a meeting would take place on November 17th.

She did not mention a lengthy conversation on November 11th in the Senator's office.

Investigations by the public prosecutor

The opposition from the CDU and the left in the committee has long assumed that there was political influence on the decision of the officials in the Warburg case - even if all witnesses from the tax authorities and the tax office have denied this.

Left chairman Norbert Hackbusch said of the calendar entries: "Mr Scholz's memory gaps are becoming increasingly untrustworthy." And further: "Something is rotten in the city-state of Hamburg." Mayor Tschentscher is due to testify as a witness in the committee next year. Scholz may also be asked again.

The public prosecutor's office in Cologne, which is investigating hundreds of cases because of the illegal cum-ex deals, also considers Tschentscher to be "actually involved" in the tax decision at the end of 2016. The North Rhine-Westphalian officials also go against the responsible tax officer and the earlier one Hamburg SPD politician Johannes Kahrs because of the initial suspicion of favoritism.

The tax officer's lawyer recently told SPIEGEL that the suspicion would not be substantiated.

Kahrs did not want to comment on the allegations.