"You have to take it": Witness Söder cannot remember critical text messages in the mask committee

Created: 12/17/2022, 8:31 am

By: Marcus Mäckler

Praise for the government, memory gaps in detail.

In the mask investigation committee, the witness Markus Söder attests to a masterful pandemic policy.

Munich – It could be casualness or – just maybe – a little nervousness.

Slightly bent, Markus Söder sits on one of the dark cantilever chairs in the hall, his elbows on his legs, he rocks every now and then.

Actually, Bavaria's Prime Minister is a voluminous guy, but if you didn't know where he was sitting, you would almost have to look for him on Friday morning, here in the conference room of the state parliament.

Söder is invited to the mask investigation committee, as the last of 150 witnesses.

After a year, 45 meetings and 240 hours, this is the high point of mask education, the SPD speaks of a "showdown".

Söder interprets the appointment differently.

"Thank you for the opportunity to share today," he says at the beginning.

Exchange, that sounds comfortable.

Söder rejects personal responsibility for the mask deficits

It's going to be something more than that. There are two allegations.

The Prime Minister is said to have personally campaigned for the expensive purchase of masks from China, some of which later proved to be useless.

Then there's the matter of his wife's company offering to get masks in 2020.

A deal didn't materialize, but the opposition is still curious.

Söder is well prepared.

In his statement he recalls the precarious situation at the beginning of the pandemic, exploding corona numbers, empty material warehouses, the pressure from all sides.

There was an “absolute emergency”.

He praises the state government and party friends.

Everything was done to get masks, but "always according to law and order".

He admits small mistakes in corona management, but he rejects personal responsibility for the mask deficits.

The Ministry of Health, then under Melanie Huml, and the State Office for Health and Food Safety were responsible for the purchase.

However, he himself set the “big line” for fighting the pandemic.

As prime minister, you don't have to worry about every detail, he says.

"You don't count every mask either." That's why there was "no influence, no instructions" to anyone.

Mask investigation committee: Söder “cannot remember” sent SMS

For real?

An SMS that he is said to have sent in the turmoil of the pandemic in March 2020 seems to prove the opposite.

It was about the question of whether a mask business would come about, which the then Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer had mediated.

The ministry wanted to refuse, but Söder is said to have demanded via SMS: "You have to take it, Scheuer has to guarantee it!" The ministry probably felt that this was an instruction.

Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder takes part in the meeting of the Mask U Committee as a witness.

© Peter Kneffel/dpa

Söder is a prolific copywriter, he rules almost by short message.

"I text a lot," he says.

"But I can't remember them." SPD parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn later calls it "not very credible".

Söder also allegedly does not remember how the deal came about.

Nevertheless, he was standing at the airport when the around eight million masks arrived.

It was a "day of hope", says Söder.

It later turned out that some of the China goods were no good.

Mask offer from Söder's wife was a "possible offer of help".

Anyway, the memory.

He misses her again and again on Friday, he doesn't want to have known a lot.

He only found out about the commission deals from his ex-party friends Alfred Sauter and Georg Nüßlein from the newspaper.

He doesn't even know Andrea Tandler, daughter of ex-CSU leader Georg Tandler, who also raked in a lot of money.

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It's tiring at times.

The opposition asks in turn, Söder always gives the same answers – including when it comes to his wife’s company.

During a “morning conversation” she informed him about a “possible offer of help”.

He then asked his office to pass on his wife's number to the responsible body in the Ministry of Health.

"I didn't have anything else to do with it." His office and her company remain strictly separate.

Mask investigation committee: In between it got heated

It only gets hot once or twice.

When Florian von Brunn asked about Karin Baumüller-Söder again, the CSU man accused him of "AfD-style questions".

The SPD parliamentary group leader, a passionate provocateur, is also investigating the Sauter case, speaking of the CSU's susceptibility to corruption.

Söder seems indignant for a moment and counters with the corruption scandal surrounding former EU Parliament Vice Eva Kaili, a social democrat.

It's quite entertaining, but beside the point.

After three hours, the witness Söder is released.

A relief for him, a disillusionment for the opposition.

It wasn't enough for the showdown, the big demonstration.

"It bothers me that Mr. Söder was not willing to take personal responsibility," says von Brunn after the meeting.

Nevertheless, it was generally good to set up the committee.

A final report is still pending.

Söder doesn't have to worry.