An employee of the Tübingen city administration failed before the Reutlingen labor court with a claim for damages and pain and suffering.

She had accused the city administration of not getting a chance to fill a position in the antechamber of Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer because she had disclosed her former love affair with the politician in the interview.

A negotiation date before the mayoral election in October last year had been postponed with regard to political consequences.

Ruediger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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After a court date in November, the woman was warned by the city administration: she is said to have threatened Palmer to make further details of the relationship public.

The court then proposed an amicable settlement: the plaintiff should withdraw her complaint, and in return the administration would have to delete the warning from the personnel file.

The city's attorney rejected the settlement proposal, saying the plaintiff had crossed "red lines."

The court upheld the warning on Thursday.

According to the city administration, the alleged love affair with the mayor was not at all decisive for the rejection.

Rather, the applicant did not meet the job requirements formulated in the advertisement: she did not want to accept a full-time position and also announced that she would be taking parental leave.

The former staff councilor was probably concerned with a higher tariff classification.

One reason for rejection, said Tübingen Social Mayor Daniela Harsch (SPD), was a “significant conflict of interest”.

The applicant was the life partner of the editor-in-chief of the Tübingen newspaper "Schwäbisches Tagblatt", and the newspaper itself informed the readers about this.

Among the Baden-Württemberg journalists, the Tübingen editor-in-chief has been one of Palmer's harshest critics for years.

Earlier, when she was a staff councillor, she had brought an action before the labor court against the city in order to achieve better collective bargaining.

When she sued in the case of her application as a receptionist for the mayor and for social mayor Harsch, she was no longer a staff councilor.

Boris Palmer, who has had to suspend his membership in the Greens until the end of 2023 because of the settlement of the party exclusion process, has been married to the teacher Magdalena Ruoffner since 2021, with whom he has two children.