CDU mask deal is spreading - Jens Spahn under pressure
Created: 02/21/2022, 16:53
By: Bettina Menzel
A new report casts a bad light on Jens Spahn's (CDU) recent weeks in the Office of the Minister of Health © Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The CDU mask deals are spreading further and are now also reaching the immediate environment of the former Health Minister Jens Spahn.
Capitalizing on a crisis: That seemed to be the goal of numerous CDU MPs in 2020.
At the beginning of the corona pandemic, they obtained financial advantages for themselves, as the
mirror
revealed in the course of research.
Masks were in short supply at the time, the Federal Ministry of Health was desperately looking for suppliers and paid high prices and commissions for the mediation.
Jens Spahn was Federal Minister of Health at the time – there were also beneficiaries of the “mask deals” in his immediate vicinity, as
Apotheke Adhoc
reported on Monday.
Mask deals: Saxon company without experience received millions in funding from the state
At the center of the "mask affair" were Georg Nüßlein (CSU) and Nikolaus Löbel (CDU) as well as Mark Hauptmann (CDU).
The allegations were corruption and lobbying.
Now it has become known that the Saxon company Simple Breath could also have benefited.
In spring 2020, the Saxon company was awarded a contract worth 410 million euros.
On April 15, the Federal Ministry of Health signed the contract with Simple Breath, although the company had no experience with medical protective equipment and according to
Apotheke Adhoc
report was in fact a letterbox company with a start-up capital of 400 euros.
The company was only entered in the commercial register on May 18, at a time when the contract with the Ministry of Health, which was then led by Spahn, was already running.
Simple Breath is said not only to have received a lucrative contract, but also two grants, according to the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is now led by Robert Habeck.
These are said to have been distributed as part of the module “Innovative and state-of-the-art systems for the production of protective masks” and each amounted to 522,395 euros.
After the systems went into operation and the documents were finally checked, Simple Breath received a total of 1,044,790 euros in funding in September 2021, as
Apotheke Adhoc
reports.
Simple Breath: Jens Spahn is in this connection with the profiteers of the mask deal
Particularly explosive: The founder of Simple Breath is Maximilian Schmidt (25), the managing director was Dr.
Kevin Strassburger (33).
Both are members of the Leipzig CDU and are well connected there.
When Simple Breath was commissioned, Straßburger was also the personal advisor to Peter Zimmermann, the managing director of the Leipzig consulting firm Wolffberg.
The businessman is considered a long-time confidant and first-name friend of Jens Spahn.
In addition, Zimmermann was the organizer of the controversial "donation dinner" of the CDU, at which the participants are said to have donated 9999 euros each in order to stay below the limit of naming donors.
The dinner with numerous participants also took place at a time when Spahn, in his function as Minister of Health, called on the population to reduce contacts.
One day after the donation dinner, Spahn promptly reported that he had tested positive for Corona.
Simple Breath itself has already commented on the allegations.
You discovered the tender from the Federal Ministry of Health yourself and: "Mr. Spahn is not personally known to the management, there was never direct contact with Mr. Spahn."