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Health Minister Jens Spahn with his husband Daniel Funke (archive image)
Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa
Health Minister Jens Spahn is currently more and more criticized.
Now he has to accept a setback in a supposedly private matter: Spahn apparently no longer wants to take action against media reporting on the purchase price of his villa in Berlin-Dahlem in the future.
According to SPIEGEL information, the property is said to have cost 4.125 million euros.
The land registry at the Schöneberg District Court is said to have officially confirmed the amount upon request.
The "Tagesspiegel" reported on it first.
Spahn had obtained court orders against several media, according to which the exact amount could not be publicly stated.
But the pressure for transparency increased.
The problem: the financing
The trouble started in the summer.
Journalists from the Springer online portal “Business Insider” reported that Spahn and his husband Daniel Funke had bought a villa in Berlin's posh Dahlem district in July.
The "dreamlike monument in the best location" (broker advertisement) comprises 285 square meters of living space on a 1317 square meter property.
The million dollar deal became really problematic because of the financing: The bulk of the loans for the purchase of the Berlin property was apparently contributed by Sparkasse Westmünsterland of all places.
There Spahn, the local member of the Bundestag, sat on the administrative board from 2009 to 2015.
Did these old relationships bring him special loan terms?
Instead of dispelling the suspicion and disclosing the contract details, he took legal action against the reports and, among other things, had a court forbidden to publish the exact purchase price for the villa.
That is the end of it now.
Nevertheless, the matter should not be completely over.
Shortly before Christmas, reporters from “Stern” and “Tagesspiegel” followed suit and made two more controversial real estate purchases by Spahn public.
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