Casino affair (Bavaria)
As gambling affair , the political events in to Bavaria from 1955 to 1962 following the granting of concessions for casinos referred to individuals.
Reign of the Hoegner Cabinet (SPD)
From 1954 to 1957 Wilhelm Hoegner was Bavarian Prime Minister for a second time and relied on a parliamentary majority within the framework of a coalition of four to which the Bavarian Party (BP) also belonged. The fifth party represented in the Bavarian state parliament was the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). Although it was the strongest faction, it was in the opposition.
On April 21, 1955, at the instigation of BP, the state parliament approved the granting of concessions to private individuals to operate casinos . As a result, casinos opened in Bad Kissingen , Bad Reichenhall and Garmisch-Partenkirchen , and in 1957 the casino in Bad Wiessee was added. Soon afterwards, rumors arose that the licensing was not done properly and that money had flowed from those interested in casinos to politicians.
According to an article in the Münchner Abendzeitung , an investigation committee should clarify allegations of bribery in connection with the concession to Simon Gembicki for the Bad Kissinger casino.
Alois Hundhammer (CSU) acted as chairman of the investigative committee that met in 1955/56 to clarify the events in which high government members of the coalition of four such as Interior Minister August Geislhöringer (BP) and Deputy Prime Minister Joseph Baumgartner (BP) were involved . The committee of inquiry did not find anything. The state government emphasized the realization that the politically responsible minister had not been guilty of anything and successfully filed criminal charges for defamation .
Months later it became clear how serious Baumgartner's and Geislhöringer's statements in the interrogations were. Rudolf Hanauer (CSU) knew that Baumgartner had social and family contacts with concessionaire Karl Freisehner (1903–1967), a trained butcher from Gmünd in Austria, long before the topic of casinos. The chairman of the committee, Hundhammer, was aware of information from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to Geislhöringer about the applicant Gembicki. Both BP politicians denied sophisticated questions in the investigative committee and swore their statements.
The CSU succeeded in the following period with intrigues to detach the Bavarian party from the coalition of four. Because of the licensing, the Bavarian party had a reputation for corruption , and the scandal surrounding the Bavarian casinos brought the coalition into moral disrepute.
On October 8, 1957 Prime Minister Hoegner resigned with his cabinet, eight days later Hanns Seidel (CSU) was his successor at the head of a coalition government of the CSU, FDP and GB / BHE . The SPD and the Bavarian Party went into opposition.
Reign of the Seidel Cabinet (CSU)
Under changed political circumstances, the approved concessions became an issue again. The state elections of November 23, 1958 , gave the CSU a clear increase in votes and losses to the smaller parties.
1959 filed Karl Frei Sehner in secret agreement with the CSU a voluntary disclosure for bribery. In retrospect, unusual circumstances came to light. The merchant, butcher, taxi driver and roulette partner Freisehner offered the then CSU General Secretary Friedrich Zimmermann evidence of bribe payments to the Bavarian party ministers. He hoped for further casino licenses in return for his courtesy. CSU co-founder Josef Müller kept the written voluntary disclosure from Freehner for several months. After the arrangement of a merger between the casino companies of Bad Wiessee and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the group of interested parties around Freisehner was compensated for their shares in the company. When Freisehner had received his last installment, the voluntary disclosure appeared to the public prosecutor. The submitted receipts for the alleged bribery were judged by experts to be “most likely forged”, but the court later held them to be genuine.
The 1959 trial
In the proceedings before the district court Munich I , Joseph Baumgartner and August Geislhöringer were entangled among the electorate, well-respected and leading figureheads of the Bavarian party. The statements made and sworn before the investigative committee in 1955/56 came up again.
It turned out that Baumgartner had been paid 2,900 DM between July 11, 1953 and November 2, 1954, and that he was friends with Freisehner until 1955. Geislhöringer had stated that he did not know of any unfavorable information about Gembicki; however, he knew that Gembicki, a Jew, had been convicted of fleeing Germany in 1938. Max Klotz, formerly deputy parliamentary group leader of the Bavarian party in the state parliament, was accused of receiving a total of 24,000 DM from Freisehner on the basis of Freisehner's receipts. The statement of the former CSU member of the state parliament, Franz Michel , that he had not exchanged any letters with Gustavus, who was applying for a license, could be refuted by presenting the letters.
The judgments
On August 8, 1959, the court convicted several defendants of perjury. The sentence for the former head of the Bavarian Party, Joseph Baumgartner, was two years in prison , the prison sentence for Max Klotz was two years and nine months. Former Interior Minister Geislhöringer was sentenced to 15 months in prison for perjury before the state parliament committee, and he was acquitted of the charge of corruption. Franz Michel was imprisoned for two years. Karl Freisehner received 22 months in prison for perjury. The Süddeutsche Zeitung headline on August 10, 1959: "Draconic punishments in the casino trial". Even the former CSU Prime Minister and CSU Justice Minister Hans Ehard later called this judgment “a barbaric judgment”. Because: “The two politicians in the committee of inquiry were made to swear by them on trivial matters. It doesn't really matter whether someone wore yellow boots or red ones. "
The CSU general secretary Friedrich Zimmermann, who was also accused in the casino affair, was sentenced in a subsequent trial in 1960 for negligent false oaths - in relation to the judgments against the Bavarian party officials - a comparatively mild four-month prison sentence. He had denied having had contact with another concessionaire in addition to Freisehner, which was refuted. Another court later overturned his sentence on the basis of a medical certificate, but expressly stated the following in its overall assessment: "There can be no question of the defendant's innocence being proven." According to the certificate, he had said unbelievable on the day of his statement hypoglycaemia, which impaired him, and had a mentally reduced performance due to an overactive thyroid . According to Spiegel, Zimmermann himself commented on the expert: "This was named by my defense, I saw him for the first time in the courtroom." That is why Zimmermann was nicknamed "Old Oath Hand", which haunted him all his life.
The Federal Court lifted after six months the perjury convictions of members of the government in punitive and demanded a new trial. The judgment against Karl Freisehner remained final.
aftermath
Even today, the background to the casino affair is not fully understood and doubts remain. Due to the death of Geislhöringer, a retrial could not be completed. Political observers saw the arranged scandal as a power struggle between the CSU and the Bavarian party.
On August 11, 1960, the Bavarian Council of Ministers decided not to allow any further casinos in Bavaria and not to renew the licenses that had previously been granted and expired in 1965. In February 1961, the Bavarian state parliament decided with a CSU majority to close the casinos again. However, this decision was never implemented, and four years later the Free State nationalized the casinos. The private concessionaires and shareholders were paid out in 1961.
literature
- Heinrich Senfft : Happiness is possible. The Bavarian casino trial, the CSU and the unstoppable rise of Doctor Friedrich Zimmermann. A political lesson. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-462-01940-6 ; Droemer Knaur, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-426-04050-6
- Meet at Café Annast . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1955 ( online - 12 October 1955 ).
- The donation roulette . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1959 ( online - May 27, 1959 ).
- White cuffs . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1960 ( online - Feb. 3, 1960 ).
- The perjury trap . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1960 ( online - Mar. 2, 1960 ).
- So-called white vest . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1970 ( online - Sept. 7, 1970 ).
- Fools eaten . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1970 ( online - Sept. 21, 1970 ).
- Tremendous power . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 1971 ( online - 19 July 1971 ).
- Three little pieces of paper . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1974 ( online - 22 April 1974 ).
- Acted like the Sicilian Mafia . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1988 ( online - Aug. 15, 1988 ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Acted like the Sicilian Mafia . The mirror. August 15, 1988. Retrieved February 18, 2018.
- ↑ Fools eaten . The mirror. September 21, 1970. Retrieved February 13, 2018.