Federal extinguishing days

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The term federal deletion days or action delete button describes the controversial disappearance of files and computer data of the German Federal Chancellery at the end of the reign of Helmut Kohl ( CDU ) in September / October 1998, immediately before Gerhard Schröder ( SPD ) took over the office . The events were the subject of a parliamentary committee of inquiry of the German Bundestag . The work of the committee under Burkhard Hirsch ( FDP ) led to fierce domestic political controversy. There were also public prosecutor investigations against officials of the Federal Chancellery. The report of the committee of inquiry was initially not made available to the public, but later became known through individual media.

As part of a settlement, the Federal Chancellery under Angela Merkel (CDU) later found in the case of one of the initially accused officials that the "accusation of illegal central data deletion [...] was unfounded". The Bonn public prosecutor closed the case. It later emerged that the six Leuna files and files for further privatizations were available as copies in several ministries. During an on-site visit at the Chancellery, the public prosecutor's office was able to inspect some of the documents. An expert opinion by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft from 2002 came to the conclusion that a systematic deletion of data in connection with the change of government in 1998 could not be proven.

Missing files

The report of the investigative committee, which worked under the direction of Burkhard Hirsch ( FDP ), states that files on the following topics are incomplete or that secret files may have been completely destroyed:

The former head of the Federal Chancellery, Friedrich Bohl , stated before the committee that he had not issued any instructions to employees about the deletion and destruction of data.

The report, largely influenced by Hirsch, could not prove the alleged destruction of files - there was no question that files had disappeared. Despite political resistance from the federal government at the time (red / green) , the associated investigative proceedings by the public prosecutor were finally closed. Serious allegations of unilateral, politically motivated investigations were made against Hirsch, especially by the CDU and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .

On December 1, 2006, the responsible Federal Chancellery determined that a department head responsible at the time was “fully rehabilitated”: “All allegations were and are unfounded”. The Federal Chancellery paid the civil servant's legal fees (FAZ, December 29, 2006).

Individual documents about armaments and aircraft deals and the sale of state-owned railway workers' apartments could not be found. Several of the files that had disappeared were related to the CDU donation affair . The investigations by the public prosecutor's office did not reveal sufficient suspicion to initiate main proceedings against individual persons, which is why the investigation was finally closed. The responsible public prosecutor Georg Linden later explicitly pointed out that this legal assessment does not mean that the processes were also politically flawless: “It may be that some people in politics and also in parts of the public have a queasy feeling. But we have to precisely separate the levels here. If we, as public prosecutors, do not see sufficient suspicion of a criminal act, that does not mean that an incident is politically in order. But the public prosecutor's office does not have to rule on that. "

Deleted data

According to a statement by the investigating public prosecutor Georg Linden, the investigations revealed that in the course of the change of government in 1998 , databases were actually deleted.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft explained to the public prosecutor's office in its report of July 29th that there were no direct indications from the hard drives of the central server in the Federal Chancellery for data deletions in the period September / October 1998.

The whole process did not discuss whether the deletion of data, although criminally irrelevant, violated the provisions of the Federal Archives Act, according to which all federal authorities and agencies are required to submit all their documents to the Federal Archives . According to this law, the Federal Archives alone can decide whether data and documents are deleted or whether they are kept permanently.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Litigation between the Federal Republic of Germany and Dr. Roll ended ( memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) . Press release of December 4, 2006
  2. ↑ Heribert Prantl : file number 50 Js 816/00 unsolved. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 10, 2010, accessed April 3, 2016 (should be updated).
  3. ↑ "Federal extinguishing days" are a legend . Berliner Morgenpost. October 4, 2003. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Federal Erasure Days"? Chancellery files not destroyed after all . In: Die Welt , April 15, 2002
  5. ↑ Expert opinion: There were no “federal erasure days” . In: Die Welt , August 25, 2002
  6. ↑ The Hirsch report on the Internet: Now it is really interesting what "special investigator" Burkhard Hirsch had to say to the prosecutors in Bonn . In: Die Zeit , No. 19/2001 - Burkhard Hirsch: Report on investigations by the Federal Chancellery on selected areas . ( Memento of July 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) pp. 5–10, Berlin, July 21, 2000
  7. ^ Rainer Blasius: Embarrassment . In: FAZ , February 14, 2004, p. 1
  8. ↑ a b c Data deleted, proceedings discontinued . In: Die Zeit , No. 9/2004
  9. ^ Welt am Sonntag , August 25, 2002
  10. ↑ Hartmut Weber, President of the Federal Archives: Kohl and the shrinkage of files . In: Die Zeit , No. 46/2001