AKH scandal

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Model of the AKH

The AKH scandal was the largest building scandal in Austria to date . The background to this was the cost explosion and the associated bribery affair during the construction of the new General Hospital of the City of Vienna (AKH).

The construction of the General Hospital in Vienna was decided as early as 1955 (projected costs: one billion schillings , planned construction time: ten years), but only started in the early 1970s. At around 45 billion schillings, the major project became Europe's most expensive hospital building, which was not fully operational until 1994.

The journalist Alfred Worm uncovered the AKH scandal in 1980; the main culprit was the technical director of the Allgemeine-Krankenhaus-Planungs- und Errichtungsgesellschaft (AKPE) Adolf Winter. Helene Partik-Pablé acted as examining magistrate , who gained popularity in Austria and later moved into the National Council for the FPÖ . The AKH trial followed in September 1981, the largest court case in Austria's post-war history to date with 30,000 pages in 67 files, as many pages as enclosures, four experts and more than 100 summoned witnesses. The charges against Winter and eleven other defendants were commercial fraud , breach of trust , prohibited intervention , aiding and abetting such crimes and violations under the Foreign Exchange Act. Winter was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1981. According to the judgment of the judge, Winter is said to have collected 30 million shillings (2.18 million euros) in bribes . His co-defendants got from one year up to five years and 350 days unconditionally. In the second instance, the sentence was reduced to eight instead of nine years for accepting gifts instead of infidelity. Other sentences have also been reduced.

The then Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Hannes Androsch also got caught up in the affair . In 1988 he was convicted of false testimony by a Viennese court in connection with his testimony before the parliamentary AKH committee and had to resign as CA director general.

In his speech at the opening of the Wels Fair in August 1980, Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger coined the catchphrase “draining the swamps and acid meadows”.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d The biggest "building scandals". derStandard.at , March 23, 2004
  2. ↑ a b Dispute over AKH renovation. orf.at , October 18, 2013; accessed on July 24, 2018
  3. ↑ SPÖ Crown Prince, industrial captain, mythical creatures - Hannes Androsch turns 80 . News.at , April 17, 2018; accessed on July 24, 2018
  4. ^ Contribution to the 70th birthday on March 20, 1985. Ö1-Mittagsjournal, Österreichische Mediathek
  5. ↑ Eliminate breeding ground for corruption . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 30, 1980, p. 2 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).