Three weeks after allegations about protective mask shops became known, influencer Fynn Kliemann distanced himself from a textile company involved.

The musician and entrepreneur said on Instagram that he wanted to immediately dissolve ties to the Global Tactics group of companies.

He is giving back his shares in two group companies founded in 2021.

Kliemann and the textile company were heavily criticized in early May by a TV report by the satirist Jan Böhmermann on ZDF.

Kliemann has an online fashion shop ("Oderso"), through which he offers clothing produced in Europe.

Global Tactics is a textile company from North Rhine-Westphalia with which he maintained business relations.

The mask case is very small.

The TV report raised the question of whether the country of production was deliberately concealed in certain transactions by Global Tactics with a wholesaler in 2020 - masks came from Asia instead of Europe.

The allegations from the Böhmermann program are also about defective masks that were donated to refugees.

After the broadcast, the listed retailer, Kliemann and the textile company spoke up independently of each other and also announced that they would each conduct further internal investigations.

The accusations were initially rejected by Kliemann and only partially classified in more detail after further public pressure in a Spiegel interview.

Kliemann then admitted, for example, that he had made a profit from the business, which he initially denied.

According to Kliemann, he used his reputation, his name and free of charge to quickly organize masks in Germany at wholesale level during the pandemic.

There was talk of the “largest mask producer in Europe”.

In his Instagram post, the 34-year-old presented himself after a more unreasonable introduction ("Honestly, I always thought the criticism was hitting the wrong person"), but he was now filled with remorse and explained again that he was in his own shop - Contrary to initial statements - I made money selling masks.

As a result, he repeatedly admitted to having “communicated shitty”.

"I'm cleaning everything up now.

I rebuild myself, and everything around me, so that something like this can never happen here again.” He promised full transparency.

On his homepage one can follow how independent experts commissioned by him "broke down every connection of the last few weeks" to prove what he had done.

He also wrote on the shop website that he had made a big communication mistake.

"Never maliciously or with fraudulent intent, but it was still a mistake." He will donate the profit of more than 280,000 euros.

Kliemann has a large fan base – but his style is also polarizing.

He presents himself as a self-made type and free spirit.

In addition to his music career, the most famous project is probably the "Kliemannsland".

This is a farm in Rüspel, Lower Saxony.

There he built a kind of adventure playground for adults.

There is handicrafts, screws, music made - you can book workshops.

Kliemann is known for his do-it-yourself clips on YouTube, where he is followed by hundreds of thousands.

He is also a businessman involved in companies.

A good week ago, Global Tactics founder Tom Illbruck spoke up on the Internet.

He wrote about mistakes and misunderstandings for which he wanted to take responsibility.

"During this, no doubt hectic, time at the beginning of the pandemic, I was unaware of the serious consequences my misconduct in communication could cause." He announced that he would be retiring from the company.