Hersch Beker

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Hersch Beker (born November 9, 1943 in Leningrad ) is an Israeli businessman and former brothel operator in Frankfurt's red light district . In 1990 he was at the center of the Beker affair , which also politically burdened the then Hessian CDU Prime Minister Walter Wallmann . During his time as mayor of Frankfurt, he tried to push prostitution out of the station district through a new restricted area ordinance . As part of the political processing of the affair, the Hessian Interior Minister Gottfried Milde had to resign because he had illegally quoted from police tapping logs to exonerate Wallmann. Beker managed to escape to Israel in 1990 , but returned voluntarily in 1995. The legal proceedings against him ended in 2000 with a suspended prison sentence and a fine for unauthorized gambling , forgery of documents and tax evasion .

Beker affair

Beker's career began as a bouncer in the Frankfurt nightclub Imperial under the management of Josef Buchmann , who Beker took over in the further course of his work after Buchmann had switched to the real estate business. With his brother Chaim Beker, Hersch Beker acquired a number of properties in Frankfurt in the 1970s and 1980s, the value of which was finally estimated at over DM 200 million . Some of the properties, especially in the red light district, Beker rented or sold to the city at high prices corresponding to the trade. With Wallmann's approval, the magistrate wanted to win Beker's support for the planned restricted area ordinance, with which prostitution and organized crime should be displaced from the previous red light district. For example, the English Theater moved into one of the rented houses at Kaiserstrasse 52 . The city wanted to upgrade the station district and make it more attractive for citizens who did not belong to the red light district . Between 1989 and 2000, the city paid a total of 45 million Deutschmarks to Beker for the building. The city financed part of the real estate business through the General Alms Box Foundation . In return, Beker acquired five urban properties on Breite Gasse in the east of downtown Frankfurt, which, according to the restricted area ordinance, should become the new tolerance zone for prostitution.

In November 1989, as part of an investigation into various offenses in the context of organized crime, a search of the house of the Beker brothers was carried out, during which documents were found showing the close relationship between Beker and the city authorities. In the further course of the investigation, an arrest warrant was issued against Hersch Beker and several city officials.

Political Consequences

As part of the investigation was political donations Bekers to the CDU known. Due to Beker's relationship with the former CDU magistrate in Frankfurt, Prime Minister Wallmann came under pressure from the press and the opposition in the state parliament . On October 24, 1990, Interior Minister Milde quoted from a telephone conversation between Beker and his lawyer that had been tapped by the Federal Criminal Police Office . In doing so, he violated telecommunications secrecy . Milde took responsibility for this "political mistake" and resigned on November 6, 1990. The opposition called this a pawn sacrifice by the ruling party in order to divert attention from Wallmann's responsibility.

Legal proceedings

During a hospital stay in 1990, Beker managed to escape to Tel Aviv overnight , where he took on Israeli citizenship. In 1994 he returned to Frankfurt. In November 1995, the Grand Criminal Chamber of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court sentenced him to three years' imprisonment. Beker paid 29 million DM for evaded taxes and was released on bail. The Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment on August 17, 1998 (5 StR 59/97) with regard to the sentence, since the casinos operated illegally by Beker were not subject to sales tax under applicable law. On February 8, 2000, the legal processing of the Beker affair ended with a ruling by the Frankfurt Regional Court. The sentence was reduced to one year and three months imprisonment for unauthorized gambling , forgery and tax evasion, all of which were suspended on probation against payment of a fine of one million Deutschmarks .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Local court Frankfurt am Main, commercial register of Gebr. Beker Grundstücks-GmbH HRB 55733
  2. ↑ a b c Stimulus of illegality . In: DER SPIEGEL . No. 8/1990 , February 19, 1990, pp. 14 ( archive digital ).
  3. ↑ a b Wallmann's weak memory . In: DER SPIEGEL . No. 15/1990 , April 9, 1990, pp. 14 ( archive digital ).
  4. ^ Butz Peters: Corporations of crime . In: The time . No. 8/1990 , May 11, 1990, pp. 14 ( archive digital ).
  5. ↑ a b c Handle in the box . In: DER SPIEGEL . No. 28/1990 , July 9, 1990 ( digital archive ).
  6. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau of February 8, 2000, p. 24
  7. ↑ Good relationships . In: DER SPIEGEL . No. 12/1990 , March 19, 1990 ( digital archive ).
  8. ^ Resignation of the Hessian Interior Minister Gottfried Milde because of a wiretapping affair, November 6, 1990. Contemporary history in Hesse. (As of June 13, 2016). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  9. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 9, 2000, p. 61
  10. ↑ Hubert Beste: Morphology of Power: Urban “Security” and the Profit Orientation of Social Control, Opladen 2000, p. 291
personal data
SURNAME Beker, Hersch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli businessman and former brothel operator
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Leningrad