He was the string puller and debt collector, now the pithy ex-politician Johannes Kahrs (SPD) is under suspicion in the Cum-Ex complex because of 200,000 euros in his Hamburg safe deposit box. Welcome to the House of Kahrs.
“Hate makes you ugly – take a look in the mirror.” It is doubtful whether the AfD deputies addressed in this way actually went to the toilet. The group, led by Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland, left the hall venting their anger. The general debate in the German Bundestag on September 12, 2018 had its scandal. Trigger then: Johannes Kahrs.
Kernig, pithy, Kahrs: That’s how Johannes, born in 1963 into a North German SPD dynasty, liked to present himself over the years of his political work. His speeches and appearances on talk shows were the opposite of boring and often hit the nerve of more conservative voters, while he often shook his own people’s heads.
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So now the long-time chief budgetary of the SPD in the Bundestag, former spokesman for the Seeheimer Kreis, which he also respected, and colonel in the reserve has made the headlines again. Involuntarily this time and two years after his Holterdiepolter resignation from all political offices in May 2020. It’s about a good 200,000 euros and a few thousand US dollars, the investigators as part of their investigations into the cum-ex scandal surrounding the Hamburg Warburg Bank in Kahr’s locker at the Sparkasse. Kahrs himself is silent.
Since the weekend, political Germany has been wondering where all the money could come from. Is there a connection with the tax millions from the illegal cum-ex transactions of the Warburg banker Christian Olearius, which were initially not reclaimed by the Hamburg tax authorities? In the room is the allegation of favoring tax evasion. The former member of the European Parliament and Bundestag, economist and financial expert Fabio De Masi (left) already attested to this affair “the potential to overthrow the chancellor”.
De Masi knows Kahrs from Hamburg, the German Bundestag and joint appearances. “Kahrs was the man with the black suitcase,” says De Masi, who is now a fellow for the Finanzwende citizens’ movement and was involved in the investigation of one of the biggest financial scandals in Germany on the Wirecard committee of inquiry in the Bundestag. “Anyone who wanted money for their constituency had to be on good terms with Kahrs.”
The picture that De Masi draws of his former fellow MP is similar to that of MP and later US President Frank Underwood, who pulls the strings on the Netflix show “House of Cards”, holds the strings in his hand no way around. Other parallels are purely coincidental, but definitely significant. “For Kahrs, politics was business,” says De Masi. According to the motto: “One hand washes the other.”
De Masi is convinced that the SPD and also the current Chancellor and former First Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, have benefited from the “Kahrs system”. The fact is: meetings between Scholz and the shareholders of Warburg-Bank took place, probably mediated by Kahrs. It is unclear whether the money found in his locker is actually related to the cum-ex complex. Possession itself is not illegal.
De Masi called Kahrs a “Kiez Mafiosi” a long time ago because of his methods. “Kahrs certainly liked it, he flirted with something like that,” emphasizes the 42-year-old in an interview with FOCUS online. He found Kahrs to be very friendly and jovial when dealing with people.
But De Masi also says: “Even ministers trembled before Kahrs.” Because he was the treasurer in the budget committee. “Anyone who wanted money had to do well, including Scholz.” Or to put it another way: “House of Kahrs – that’s no coincidence.”
The former candidate for the SPD presidency Dierk Hirschel, today chief economist of the service union Ver.di, knows the “Kahrs system” from his time in Hamburg. Compared to FOCUS online, he classifies his Twitter tirade from the previous day against the party friend. This caused quite a stir nationwide:
“I got to know Kahrs as a pure power man,” emphasizes Hirschel. And further: “Against the background of the anti-democratic methods and the complete political arbitrariness of his positions, I never saw what connected this person to the basic values of the SPD – freedom, equality, solidarity.”
At the same time, he also ascribes certain qualities to Kahrs, calling him a people-catcher, a buddy type, also close to the people and well connected in the constituency.
All in all, however, Hirschel complains that Kahrs was being too lenient when, at around the age of 28, he harassed a Juso rival in Hamburg with telephone terror and was finally caught by a tracer.
“The SPD Hamburg could have prevented Kahrs’ political rise,” Hirschel clarified. It was a big political mistake not to exclude him from the party after his bullying in the early 1990s.
