Prominent witness: Kerstin Schreyer and the chairman of the Committee of Inquiry 2nd Main Line, Bernhard Pohl (FW), before the start of the meeting. © Sven Hoppe/dpa
Former Transport Minister Kerstin Schreyer (CSU) had early indications that costs and schedule were getting out of hand on the 2nd trunk line. But her cries for help to the Bavarian State Chancellery did not get through.
Munich – Kerstin Schreyer took office in February 2020 and remained Minister of Transport for two years before she had to hand over the executive chair to her successor Christian Bernreiter (CSU) in February 2022. To this day, there are many rumours about the reasons for this change of minister decreed by Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). Was it because the CSU member of parliament from the district of Munich was too stubborn in construction projects such as the 2nd trunk line?
In any case, the opposition in the state parliament showered Schreyer with praise yesterday in the committee of inquiry into Bavaria's largest construction project. She had to "pay respect" to her, said SPD MP Inge Aures, "that you had so much backbone." Aures later added: "She was the only woman who confessed to her 'man' and dared to confront the State Chancellery with the truth." Schreyer had "sounded the alarm," Sebastian Körber (FDP) also noted. But no one listened to them.
Schreyer in the state parliament: Pofalla is choleric
Between July and December 2020, things came to a head, Schreyer told the investigative committee. In the summer, Schreyer received the first indications of a cost increase. In September, after a conversation between their officials and DB, it became more concrete, there was talk of costs of 5.2 (instead of 3.8) billion and completion in 2034 (instead of 2028). Schreyer, as she presented it to the committee, was not satisfied with these indications, she wanted it in black and white, i.e. an exact cost and schedule from Deutsche Bahn. But it didn't get through.
It was particularly revealing how she described a meeting with the then DB Board Member for Infrastructure, Ronald Pofalla, on October 5, 2020 on the sidelines of an appointment at the DB Museum Nuremberg. During a smoking break in front of the door, she asked Pofalla about the first numbers, but then "Pofalla told me that it was unbelievable to trumpet numbers like that." When asked, she described Poffala as "choleric".
Schreyer was so distraught at the Nuremberg meeting that she doubted the figures she already had and had everything confirmed by her ministry. She later wrote a letter to Pofalla, who replied that the data was only a "basis for discussion". Schreyer called the railway a "black box", in which one hardly penetrates even as a state minister. "Deutsche Bahn is called Deutsche Bahn and not Bayerische Bahn," she said. "I can't govern into a Deutsche Bahn as Bavarian Minister of Transport."
In the matter, Schreyer now turned to her party colleague, Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer. But nothing came of it – Scheuer even denied in the investigative committee that he had received an incendiary letter from Schreyer at all. Yesterday, the Greens filed a criminal complaint for unsworn false testimony.
Round table with Söder - nothing came of it
Finally, Schreyer devised another way out: her boss Markus Söder should convene a round table to clarify things. On her document sent to the State Chancellery, Söder's head of office wrote at least handwritten "alarm" and recommended an immediate conversation with the railway. But after that, nothing happened. It is unclear why the State Chancellery did not convene a round table. Was it because the 2nd trunk line was "not a winning issue" in the phase before the Bundestag election, as a head of department in the State Chancellery emphasized twice? "I don't know," Schreyer said. "It was always said that it was still coming."
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In 2021, however, it is not apparent that Schreyer would have attached much importance to the round table – the topic petered out. "I understood that it no longer makes sense to follow up," she told the committee. However, the public did not inform them on their own initiative. Media that asked critical questions (including our newspaper) were stalled. The state parliament – after all, the financier for the large-scale project, which is financed 60 percent by Bavaria – was also left unaware by Schreyer. Now the committee of inquiry is slowly entering its final phase: Transport Minister Bernreiter and ex-Prime Minister Horst Seehofer are still on the witness list – as well as Söder on June 15.
