At first glance, Markus Braun, ex-boss of the financial service provider Wirecard, and his former employee Jan Marsalek do not have much in common.
Aside from the fact that both are the suspected masterminds in the company's accounting scandal.
Braun was seen as an introverted workaholic, Marsalek as an extroverted charismatic.
But the former Wirecard duo still shares something: They are both Austrians – and they used their contacts in Vienna to promote Wirecard in the government.
While Braun was primarily looking for proximity to the ÖVP and the then Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and donated money to the party, Marsalek took care of the rapprochement with the right-wing populist FPÖ, junior partner in Kurz's government at the time.
But Marsalek's network activities went far beyond ordinary lobbying.
He campaigned with members of the government for an ominous asylum project in Libya, which was intended to ward off refugees and had nothing to do with the financial company Wirecard.
His connections to Russia also raise many questions.
Did Marsalek try to assert Russian interests in Austria?
"Just" a financial scandal?
In this Inside Austria series, we look at the Austrian side of the Wirecard scandal.
The second episode is about the political network of Jan Marsalek and Markus Braun in their homeland.
We look at which party contacts the two maintained, where donations went, which projects Marsalek implemented on his own.
And we ask the question of whether Wirecard was just a financial scandal or whether there was more to it than that.
In the weekly podcast “Inside Austria”, SPIEGEL and STANDARD look together at the big and small scandals in Austria.
Together with journalists from both editorial offices, we reconstruct cases and events that move the country.
We look into political abysses, follow the investigations into the cause of Sebastian Kurz and his ÖVP.
And inform about an important Austrian topic of the week.
