GWG scandal

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The GWG scandal 1998 was a property n scandal and the value considered biggest scandal in Wuppertal . GWG refers to the Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft mbH Wuppertal , founded in 1937 as a housing company in Wuppertal. The managing director was Harald Röllecke , his predecessors were Johannes Hiesgen from the CDU and Helmut Sperling from the SPD .

Course of the scandal

In 1998 Elmar Schulze , then treasurer of the city of Wuppertal, was elected to the supervisory board of the GWG. Here he noticed the high losses of around 15 million Deutsche Mark reported in the 1997 annual report and the repeated award of contracts to the same entrepreneurs, about which he informed Mayor Hans Kremendahl .

After the special audit by the Auditing Office suggested by Kremendahl , the managing directors Hiesgen and Sperling were suspended from work in December 1998 . Harald Röllecke was appointed provisional managing director and later confirmed in office by the supervisory board. Röllecke released the examiners from their duty of confidentiality in August 2000 and left the company files to the State Criminal Police Office . At this point in time, the public prosecutor's investigations against Hiesgen and Sperling were already underway . The State Criminal Police Office also obtained search warrants from other companies and private individuals inside and outside Wuppertal on suspicion of fraud and breach of trust .

In October 2000, the former Wuppertal senior public lawyer and Gerd Kolbe, who had been a consultant for construction investors since the mid-1980s , were arrested. Kolbe was on the board of both the Dresen Foundation and the Halbach Foundation , in whose functions he approached the GWG for the construction of senior housing for assisted living by the Caritas Association Elberfeld and the Diakonie Wuppertal. Both cases involved high investment costs for the GWG that could not be amortized through subsequent rental income . However, both projects were presented to the supervisory board as particularly promising, especially since Uwe Reiter , managing director of Diakonie Elberfeld, supported the plans for the Elberfeld apartments . Kolbe also acted as an intermediary in the construction of the apartments for students on Tannenbergstrasse, this time for the property seller. The grounds of the former Carl Bremme brewery were bought by GWG in 1995 for planned apartments, shops and restaurants , and again a completely excessive price was paid, again based on opaque value calculations.

Because of the acceptance of Kolbe's donations against Michael Hartmann , the former editor-in-chief of the Westdeutsche Zeitung (WZ), was investigated in connection with the Bremme area . According to the public prosecutor's office, Hartmann was supposed to have campaigned for the overpriced purchase of the brewery premises at GWG in the 1990s and received the equivalent of 23,000 euros from his client. The industry service Kressreport reported that Hartmann had provided "editorial support". The purchase of the site would have been accompanied by positive reports in the WZ . Hartmann rejected the allegations. Accusations were also made against Rainer Wolff , head of the Wuppertaler Rundschau . According to Kolbe, he should have received 25,000 DM.

The Bremme project was presented to the GWG supervisory board as profitable, and the forecasts were not fulfilled here either. At the end of 1998, the Auditing Office doubted “that the Supervisory Board had properly carried out its monitoring tasks”. It was also found that the GWG had an uneconomical financing practice in many of its businesses . Reserve loans that were invested as fixed deposits were suddenly declared and used as equity , also in the three loss projects mentioned above. The city officials had always rejected all warnings from the auditing office. According to the auditing office, the result was increasing debt and the steady decline in the equity ratio .

Further investigations were aimed at the councilor of the Wuppertal Greens , Horst Westmeier , who was accused of bribery in May 2002 . He advised the Halbach Foundation between 1994 and 1996 and received a total of 29,000 German marks for it. Thereupon he was granted the renaturation of the half axis financed by the city administration .

Follow-up in court

In addition to further investigations, the public prosecutor's office confiscated property such as cars , watches , gold bars and a piano and frozen accounts so that damage incurred in the event of convictions could at least partially be compensated. At the same time, the public prosecutor's office granted the GWG the fundamental right to money sued in the event of conviction. According to Röllecke, Hiesgen, Sperling and Kolbe each declared 1.8 million German marks as arrests in rem , which means that they were not allowed to dispose of these funds. G. was about 2.5 million German marks. In total, the GWG asserted claims for damages amounting to 26 million euros .

In April 2001 came witness Kolbe from the remand free, but only against a deposit of one million German marks. It was founded in 2004 to three and a half years imprisonment and restitution s payment sentenced to the GWG of 2.9 million euros, due to a heart attack the inaugural was imprisonment uncertain. Kolbe began his imprisonment in Remscheid JVA, but the public prosecutor's office assumes that he will be served in an open prison.

Further arrest warrants for corruption , bribery and breach of trust followed in May 2001 . The two former GWG Managing Director, Uwe Reiter, were arrested Lothar Pickardt , former director of the branch of Deutsche Bank in Barmen, a local building contractor , a former officer of the GWG, Jürgen Steinbach , who Handball - patron and chairman of the telecommunications company Engel AG , Helmut Schmidt , and the star architect Sigurd Scheuermann from Aachen . The house of the Wuppertal architect Klaus Sch was searched .

In May 2002 the public prosecutor's office in Wuppertal, Remscheid and Hattingen carried out further investigations. In addition, Sch. arrested, but released on bail in July 2002.

In June 2002 the first suspects in the GWG scandal were charged. They were accused of infidelity and incitement to infidelity in connection with the Dresen and Halbach Foundation, the Bremme site and Tannenbergstrasse.

  • Horst Westmeier was the first suspect in the GWG scandal to appear before the Wuppertal jury on September 12, 2002 . He became a 15-month prison sentence on probation convicted.
  • Against Uwe Reiter was founded in June 2001 by the Landeskirchenamt Rheinland a disciplinary procedure initiated his post at the Diakonie Elberfeld, he had to retire. He was convicted of commercial bribery in business dealings in 14 cases, commercial embezzlement in two cases as well as aiding and abetting commercial embezzlement to a prison term of two years on probation and a fine of 5,000 euros.
  • Despite his quick refund of 51,000 euros to the Halbach Foundation, Lothar Pickardt received 21 months probation and a fine of 27,000 euros after his arrest in May 2001.
  • In July 2001, Helmut Schmidt resigned as CEO of Engel AG. In court he described himself as penniless and in March 2004 was sentenced to a suspended sentence of two years including a fine of 720 daily rates of 60 euros each, against which he appealed.
  • Sigurd Scheuermann accepted a penalty warrant for aiding and abetting infidelity with eleven months probation and a requirement of 10,000 euros to the state treasury and 250 hours of community service.
  • Klaus Sch. was sentenced in May 2006 to two years' probation for fraud and breach of trust as well as a fine of 12,000 euros for bribery in business dealings, as well as payment of 15,000 euros to the city hospice foundation as a probation condition.
  • Jürgen Steinbach reached an out of court settlement of the damage with the GWG, was initially sentenced to probation, but acquitted in June 2006.
  • Thomas G. was sentenced in April 2004 to a payment of 4.1 million euros and two years' probation.
  • Johannes Hiesgen remained in custody because of the risk of fleeing , but was released on bail in August 2002. He had a heart operation while incarcerated and served his four-year and nine-month sentence for infidelity in the prison hospital.
  • The Wuppertal district court sentenced Helmut Sperling to a prison sentence of four and a half years and 1.5 million euros in damages to the GWG for embezzlement and tax evasion. Sperling began his imprisonment in Remscheid JVA, but the public prosecutor's office assumes that he will be served in an open prison.
  • The proceedings against Michael Hartmann were discontinued in 2004 by the regional court in Wuppertal, subject to conditions and a fine of 46,000 euros. The former editor-in-chief of the Westdeutsche Zeitung had been charged with complicity in a particularly serious case.

Network of relationships

In order to be able to understand the arrests, it is especially important to know the network of relationships . Sperling and Hiesgen were the managing directors of the GWG. Together with the authorized signatory, they are responsible for the high losses of the GWG. Gerd Kolbe acted as a mediator both in the construction of the senior citizens' apartments and in the construction of Tannenbergstrasse. Thomas G., a local building contractor, was the general contractor for all three projects mentioned . Uwe Reiter appeared as a representative of Diakonie Elberfeld, which looks after the senior citizens in the apartments on Hardtberg . Lothar Pickardt was the sponsor for the construction of the Halbach Foundation. Klaus Sch. was the architect of numerous GWG projects. Helmut Schmidt is a partner in the general planning and project management company IPP , which acted as general contractor for GWG projects and in which Klaus Sch. is involved. And finally, Sigurd Scheuermann is the architect of the Dresen Foundation on the Hardt. Numerous other cross-connections, including to the other suspects, are so far only guesses.

consequences

The Wuppertal public prosecutor's office has been investigating 1,300 corruption suspects since 1996, including 600 public officials. The city had been given nicknames like Bergisch Sicily and Valley of Corruption . The responsible judge Helmut Leithäuser had spoken of an atmosphere of illegality in the proceedings .

Others

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Die Welt : Wuppertal: Investigations against editor-in-chief , July 24, 2002
  2. a b Rheinische Post : Proceedings against ex “WZ” editor-in-chief discontinued - fine for Michael Hartmann , November 18, 2004
  3. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: three and a half years imprisonment for agent Kolbe. ) In: Westdeutsche Zeitung (online)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wz-newsline.de
  4. Attac Wuppertal: Media and Corruption ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cross-border-wuppertal.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 8, 2005
  5. a b GWG scandal: Ex-senior public lawyer falls ill Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from April 11, 2008
  6. a b c Double revision in the case of Helmut Schmidt Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from March 31, 2004
  7. a b c GWG scandal: Ex-boss and ex-mediator in prison Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from January 7, 2008
  8. Donation process: New witnesses to Brüne testimony Westdeutsche Zeitung (online)
  9. GWG scandal: Ex-Diakonie boss only accessories in the scandal? Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from June 5, 2002
  10. Mercy judgment: Superintendent is “surprised” Westdeutsche Zeitung (Online) of May 20, 2006
  11. ^ Contaminated sites of a scandal: A look back in the Zorn Westdeutsche Zeitung (Online)
  12. ^ GWG scandal: scolding and probation for architects Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) of May 17, 2006
  13. Agreement with the ex-authorized signatory Westdeutsche Zeitung (online)
  14. penal estate in bribery case (Federal Court)  ( page no longer available , searching web archives ) - www.privatrechtskultur.de quoted Dresdner Latest News June 30, 2006@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.privatrechtskultur.de
  15. Elbe-Jeetzel-Zeitung : Ex-boss with heart disease for imprisonment in the hospital
  16. ^ Wuppertal: GWG corruption process ends WDR (online) June 29, 2004