Bundestag to probe defense minister over contracts
December 12, 2018
Ursula von der Leyen is suspected of poor management and nepotism over her department's allocation of contracts and its decision to hire a consultant as her deputy. A parliamentary committee is set to investigate.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. von Jutrczenka
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Opposition parties in the German Bundestag have agreed to launch a parliamentary investigation into Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen's role in a spending scandal involving her ministry's allocation of lucrative contracts.
Lawmakers from the Greens, Left Party and business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) approved the move after von der Leyen gave an "inadequate" testimony on the affair at a Defense Committee hearing Wednesday, Left lawmaker Alexander Neu said.
Von der Leyen, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), admitted in November that her ministry had made mistakes in allocating contracts to external consultants worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Bundeswehr scandals: Von der Leyen on the defensive
For German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, 2017 has so far been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. She's had to weather numerous Bundeswehr scandals and is under fire for not supporting her own troops.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
Von der Leyen under fire
Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wanted to show she's not blind to problems among her own troops. In light of the most recent scandal, she openly criticized army leadership, saying the Bundeswehr had an "attitude problem." But Bundeswehr officials found her comments to be outrageous. Their response to the defense minister's criticism: "Leadership goes from the top down."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
A fake Syrian refugee
The story causing the uproar: Bundeswehr lieutenant Franco A. was allegedly planning a terrorist attack and led a double life, pretending to be a Syrian refugee. He was granted partial asylum status as a war refugee in December 2016. His alleged goal: another attack blamed on a refugee. Bundeswehr officials are said to have known about Franco A.'s right-wing tendencies since 2014, but did nothing.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
Abuse in Bad Reichenhall mountain rangers unit
The Bundeswehr is currently investigating 275 cases of suspected right-wing extremism. But they're also dealing with other types of scandals. In March 2017, the public learned about the case of a lance corporal who had suffered months of abuse in a Bavarian mountain rangers unit. The victim reported being threatened and sexually harassed in 2015 and 2016. Prosecutors investigated 14 people.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Hoppe
Female recruits forced to pole-dance
The biggest scandal of von der Leyen's term so far: the horror stories coming out of the Staufer army base in Pfullendorf. In January, it was revealed that superior officers there forced recruits to undress and perform sexually-motivated acts and filmed them. Female recruits were forced to pole dance as part of an "entrance exam." The top Bundeswehr training commander was fired as a result.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T. Warnack
Many cases of right-wing extremism investigated
According to a report from Germany's federal parliamentary commissioner for the Bundeswehr, Hans-Peter Bartels, 2016 wasn't a great year for the Bundeswehr, either. There were around 60 incidents related to alleged right-wing extremism or "violations against the bases of Germany's free democratic constitutional structure." Troops shared anti-Semitic images and music or did the Nazi salute.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
Death on board the Gorch Fock
The Bundeswehr wasn't immune to scandals before von der Leyen became defense minister in December 2013. One that garnered significant public attention was the death of a 25-year-old recruit on the Navy training vessel Gorch Fock in 2010. The woman fell from the rigging during an exercise. As a consequence, other cadets refused to climb the rigging. Officer training on the ship was suspended.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Rehder
The birth of the Bundeswehr
Directly after World War II, Germany was not allowed to have an army. The Bundeswehr had its start in West Germany in 1955. After reunification, the Bundeswehr took in 20,000 soldiers from East Germany's armed forces. A big change came in 1999, when the Bundeswehr first participated in an international conflict: the Kosovo War. Before that, they had only gone abroad for peacekeeping missions.
Image: picture alliance/akg-images
No more mandatory service
Today the Bundeswehr has roughly 178,200 active soldiers. As of March 2017, 11.4 percent of them are women. Until 2011, men were required to do mandatory military service, the length of which varied between nine and 18 months. Today, the Bundeswehr has to appeal to young people to recruit soldiers. The most recent scandals are making that that more and more difficult.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
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"There were violations of the provisions guarding the awarding of contracts," von der Leyen said. "The involvement of external parties did not always proceed correctly. That should not be allowed to happen."
Nepotism and spending suspicions
The investigative committee will examine irregularities in a contract awarded to McKinsey and a €390 million ($442 million) IT contract given to another company that failed to pass through the company's supervisory board as required.
It will also investigate whether von der Leyen committed nepotism by hiring Katrin Suder, a former McKinsey consultant, as her deputy to oversee the ministry's arms procurement section.
Opposition lawmakers on the Defense Committee had complained that Suder, who quit the government early this year, had refused to speak with them over her role in the scandal. The investigative committee, unlike a standard parliamentary committee, can demand an oral testimony from witnesses.
Defense minister defends herself
Von der Leyen has denied that she had any influence over the hiring decision and defended the ministry's use of external consultants. "It is undisputed that we need external advice for these necessary projects," she said.
As for awarding contracts, she said the ministry had introduced "control" mechanisms to avoid future mistakes.
The "consultant affair," as it has become known in Germany, began in August after the National Audit Office raised concerns about wasted expenditures and nepotism within the Defense Ministry from 2015 to 2016.
