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Internet statement 2001-19
The Collapse of the Berliner Bankgesellschaft The scandal of the Berliner Bankgesellschaft is noteworthy not only because of its extent which probably will largely surpass the 4 billion DEM initially named, but also because of the uncoverings about the Berlin swamp of banks, real estate and government which it abundantly offers. They also concern the conditions in the German high society in general. All the practical questions deriving from this bankruptcy will invariably continue posing themselves also after the termination of the coalition government of the CDU (Christian Democrats) and SPD (Social Democrats) in Berlin; a change of government under the present conditions matters hardly anything. Following are some highlights from the public uncoverings up to today: - The Berliner Bankgesellschaft, the majority of stakes of which belong to the federal state of Berlin, is practicing, for example, this variety of real estate funds:
A cautious commentary would be the following: if bank directors together with managers from other firms whom they have initiated practice a method by which losses for the participants are excluded by falling back upon the bank’s resources, and this means in the end upon the public budget and the taxpayer, then they do not act as businessmen but as self-appointed redistributors of public funds to members of the high society, and they embezzle public property. This has to be persecuted appropriately. The part of the Bankgesellschaft’s deficit originating solely in the IBG is officially denominated more than 1 billion DEM. - Already up to now the Aubis scandal has been dealt with in the public relatively extensively. The owners of the firm called Aubis, Neuling and Wienhold, obtained a loan of 550 million DEM from the Berlinhyp, a subsidiary of the Bankgesellschaft, for buying and renovating apartment houses of a certain type („Plattenbauten“) in regions of the former German Democratic Republic. Upon the side of the bank, this loan was managed by Klaus Landowsky, at the same time leader of the Christian Democratic parliamentary party in the Berlin house of representatives. Alone by this loan the Berlinhyp has taken a loss of 200 Million DEM up to now, as the buildings acquired by Aubis have a much lesser value today. The decline of their value had, however, been foreseeable for a couple of years, partly because of the strong decrease of the population in the Eastern federal states which negatively affects the values of real estate there in general. When the deal was struck, in any case special payments were made into the hands of Landowsky by Aubis. What is more: the report of an internal audit in 1997 stressed the dangers of this loan, with the paradoxical result that the report disappeared and Landowsky was promoted to chief real estate manager of the whole bank. The state is involved in these machinations not only by the fact that the federal state of Berlin owns the majority of the Bankgesellschaft’s stakes and leads it by its representatives in the board of directors etc., but also by the role of the public monitoring body. The Bundesaufsichtsamt für das Kreditwesen (Federal control office for the banking sector), asked why it time and again had accepted the way of business done by the Bankgesellschaft in spite of numerous regular and also extraordinary controls during several years, and although the risks for the bank’s survival had already piled up for a long time, did not know a public answer other than ‘it must have been an interconnection of unfortunate circumstances’. Corruption within the monitoring body, perhaps also habituation to and acceptance of such practices, because they aren’t rare elsewhere either - do they perhaps also belong to these circumstances? How many members of the office did enjoy these privileged funds themselves, or profit from them indirectly? This question must be admitted. Apart from the federal state of Berlin, the Bankgesellschaft’s most important shareholder (more than 20 %) is the Norddeutsche Landesbank (NordLB), being a state institute itself and during chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s tenure as the prime minister of Lower Saxony, so to speak, his bank. Schroeder was personally involved in setting up the Bankgesellschaft in 1993. It is hardly possible that this important partner bank should have failed to notice the peculiarity of certain deals struck by the Bankgesellschaft. As if it were a matter of course, „top managers“ occupying key positions in business as well as in the parliamentary system are making directly criminal transactions or unrelentingly give utterly risky loans to the extent of at least several hundred millions DEM; as if it were a matter of course the public controllers, as well as, by the way, also the most renowned private auditing firms certify their balance sheets to be acceptable, and as if it were a matter of course then, when the missing of 4 or 5 billions cannot be concealed any longer, the government goes public with the demand that the taxpayer bear the costs. New public debt shall be incurred, although this very state has already since long ago landed in an abyss of debt and is practicing a ruinous economizing with regard to the most elementary public services as for example schools, child care and welfare. Berlin pays 11 million DEM interest every day for its existing debt of appr. 70 billion DEM and has already for a long time not been able any more to give appropriate equipment to its schools and to build and run day nurseries. And as if it were a matter of course the people responsible for the new scandal are free to pose in public, are only marginally, if at all, molested by the judiciary and receive more millions in payments and pensions for their „services“.
Whoever is still wishing to publicly declare that the Federal Republic of Germany is a „democratic state under the rule of law“, gets an occasion here to go into the concrete meaning of his words. The „democratic separation of powers“ here apparently works the following way: The parliamentary system fills the bank’s leadings posts, the controlling executive absolves them for their machinations, and the judiciary remains inactive even if everything is already scorched. For these circles „separation of powers“ apparently means moving closer together in white-collar criminal machinations and their covering, and „rule of the law“ means the responsibles are exempted from prosecution. The most elementary thing which a state really wanting to practice democracy and rule of the law would long ago have done is the arrest of quite a number of high representatives and the confiscation of their whole private property for the cover of the damage they caused. The accumulation and networking of criminal energy in the top floors of the finance capitalist and political system which becomes apparent here makes comparisons like „Bronx“ or „Palermo of the North“ looks too weak. It actually is about a top spoils system located within the ruling class of the Federal Republic of Germany which systematically robs public funds. The working population is since long paying an overwhelming amount of taxes and contributions anyway, the state’s share in the economy clearly exceeding 50%, but the state’s corresponding services and benefits have since long ceased to be approximately equal, and what the population sees instead is „lack of money“ and the decay of public services. The political representatives who now dare to announce even larger burdens in taxes and charges, combined with further deteriorations of the public services, for no other purpose than enabling them and their criminal friends to continue, have cast aside any responsibility for the society and have lost every feeling for reality. It is about stinking putrefaction in the marrow of the ruling circles, it is about the fact that former verdicts of the revolutionary socialist movement that this regime of finance capitalism is dying, perishing capitalism are again fully corroborated, and this is the debate impending first of all. It is about the fact that getting rid of this system is more justified and more urgent than it has been of any ancien régime of old. Massive opposition against this need not wonder, especially in Berlin, as nowhere else the mentality of taking and spending money which originates in other peoples’ work has become fixed like in Berlin, and it has affected many hundreds of thousands of people. This fact, too, must to be included in the debate. The political parties are now attempting to condition the whole public handling of the affair to „continue!“. For example, it is said that the taxpayer has no choice paying the billions of new debt, as 16.000 jobs of the Bankgesellschaft are lost otherwise. Jobs? Many hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost already because of the existence of the white-collar criminal- political swamp governing here for 5 decades and throttling everything except perversion, decadence and venality, and many more will go lost just because of the further increasing overwhelming tax burden. How many children have not been born just because already the previous Berlin governments put day nurseries, social support and pedagogic institutions under a regime of shrinking? This alleged care for the jobs of the Bankgesellschaft is mere hypocrisy aiming at nothing but to save the ruling circles’ hotbed. If the Bankgesellschaft’s work force really wants to fight for jobs, they should strongly engage themselves in the uncoverings and the calling-to-account, otherwise the public cannot have much interest in supporting them.
Furthermore there is much botching now in order to restructure the relations of the parliamentary parties, to bring about a „credible“ new government which the population will eventually tolerate ripping itself off again. Even a petition for a so-called referendum, aiming at new elections, is underway. But in Berlin’s parliamentary system there is no credible party, all of them being accessories and co-profiteers of the Berlin swamp, even though to various degrees, therefore the referendum is an attempt to misuse the people. The population can neither have an interest, for example, in an increased participation of the Green Party which already once took part in the government - in order to further its own very peculiar political aims, not, though, to really to go into action against corruption. The Green party is the party of state dough par excellence, and such a party will be the least to change anything. Besides, it has shown in the federal government that it even makes special efforts for putting through certain demands of finance capitalism, for example in the so-called reform of the pensions system. Now also the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) is receiving some attentiveness, but this party shows much more interest in defaming the former socialist-communist movement in the interest of the ruling finance capital than in serious work for uncovering and fighting corruption. A few weeks ago the German ‘democratic and lawful’ system represented by its federal government of SPD and Greens decided a reform of the pensions system, the visible part of which is up to now the increase of burdens because of the newly introduced obligatory additional private pensions funds. What will probably weigh much heavier, however, is the channeling of hundreds of billions from wages into the cashboxes of this very finance capital which in the case of the Bankgesellschaft is showing at least parts of its true face, and the assistant role of the state in this gigantic manipulation which in the long run will cost the working population much more than the Bankgesellschaft scandal. Among the minimal demands the present scandal is giving rise to are:
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