Unfaithfulness process: the "hero" cause and the red felt

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The Mainz district court actually wanted to start its trial against the Bundestag member Marcus Held (SPD) in February, at the latest at the beginning of March. But somehow Rhineland-Palatinate did not want to succeed in vaccinating Marcus Held's two elderly co-defendants in time. With reference to the “acutely increased health risk due to the pandemic”, the 81 and 83 year old real estate agents therefore applied for a postponement. And the court gave in, after all, the political thriller that was to be heard was likely to have a well-filled courtroom.

Especially the SPD-led state government will not have been sad about this delay.

Because in mid-March there was a state election, Prime Minister Malu Dreyer (SPD) fought for every vote.

The start of the trial against a member of the Bundestag with a red party membership card, who is accused of fraud, taking advantage, infidelity, corruption and multiple violations of the party law, would not have been a good fit.

How could Held pay for all of this?

The Social Democrats have mocked the CDU nationwide for their "mask freaks" when a comrade is sitting in the dock - reason enough for the Christian Democrats to shoot back towards the federal election.

State Secretary General Jan Zimmer mockingly commented on the start of the process, those responsible for the State SPD “are now crying crocodile tears.

Because they have neither achieved that Marcus Held was expelled from the parliamentary group, nor did they persuade him to renounce his mandate I made strong for the Bundestag.

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In 2013, quite a few in the party wondered how Held could actually pay for the material battle for his first election campaign. Shortly after his most recent nomination, documents came to light through a whistleblower, which the public prosecutor investigated and finally charged.

Everything that will be washed up in the “Causa Held” in the coming weeks is extremely unpleasant for the SPD. This by no means only applies to those allegations which, in the opinion of the public prosecutor, are actually justiciable. The process, which has now started in Mainz and initially has a further 16 days of negotiation, also highlights the red felt in Rhineland-Palatinate. In the way that a comrade can evidently easily succeed in subjugating an entire community. How he was able to put a system of loyal followers in place who supported and protected him, no matter what the 43-year-old lawyer was doing. And that was obviously a lot - not always criminally relevant, but morally or ethically reprehensible.

There is, for example, the issue of buying and selling a building that was to become a facility for the disabled. Marcus Held, a member of the German Bundestag since 2013, had been honorary mayor of the Rhine-Hessian wine village of Oppenheim for more than a decade when, at the end of 2015, he bought a building in his city's industrial park for just under 370,000 euros. Held knew that the Evangelische Diakoniestiftung Zoar was looking for real estate for a home for the disabled. And that is why he suggested to the Oppenheim city council that the industrial area, in which the building he had just acquired, was rededicated into a mixed area. The city council followed Held, as always. Only then did the house become usable for Zoar - and in August 2016 Held continued to sell for 747,500 euros, more than double the purchase price.

"Joint action plan"

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In the process before the Mainz regional court, however, the case with the Zoar building does not play a role, Held has not broken any law.

But after the Zoar deal became known, the pressure on Held increased so much that he resigned his mayor's post.

However, the lawyer continued to hold onto his Bundestag mandate including pension entitlements when his immunity was lifted by the Bundestag in June 2019.

He rejects all the allegations in the process, which revolve around a building area and brokerage fees.

Senior Public Prosecutor Thomas Bartsch presented the former mayor and the two real estate agents with a “joint crime plan” at the start of negotiations: Held is said to have paid the two men high brokerage fees on a property deal in 2013 without obtaining the consent of the city council. Apparently not even a contract was signed, and in the opinion of the investigators, the involvement of a broker would not have been necessary either. Although Oppenheim is heavily in debt, at least 200,000 euros flowed from the city coffers to the real estate duo. The brokers are said to have shown their appreciation with donations to the local SPD association. Thanks to such donations - in the negotiated case almost 25,000 euros, which were transferred in several batches,partly even by the daughter of a defendant - Marcus Held was able to afford a glamorous federal election campaign as a result. The chief public prosecutor spoke of “bribes” to the local SPD association, “disguised as donations”.

If the judges should follow the charge of unauthorized collection of money, it would also be expensive for the SPD, they would have to refund the money and pay three times the fine.

The Social Democrats have already announced that they will then seek recourse from Held.

The defense lawyers of the three accused reject all allegations and emphasize that their clients always acted for the good of the city.

The brokerage contract was made orally, and the donations were not related to the payment of brokerage fees.

Held's defense attorney criticized that her client was exposed to "extreme media pressure" and only for this reason resigned as mayor in February 2018.

“His wife and children were also affected by the hunt.” The family therefore moved to Berlin.

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Held will not run for the next general election. This marks the end of a career that once began very promisingly: Held joined the SPD at the age of 16, ten years later Germany's youngest mayor. At 36 he was sitting in the Bundestag, and actually the Social Democrat wanted to go even higher, at least for a ministerial office in Mainz. For a long time he was actually considered a bearer of hope, a political boy wonder, ambitious and hardworking, jovial and self-confident, well connected - in short, a "Kurt Beck type". Of the 7,000 inhabitants of Oppenheim, around 350 were members of the SPD at peak times, a rate so good that Held was celebrated by the party for this.

Today in Oppenheim it is said that Held wanted to establish the local association as a house power and use it for his own purposes: Anyone who wanted something in town or was looking for a job should have joined the party.

And then I got "something at the building yard or the city".

Long-term friends or companions should also have always benefited, as representatives for various matters.

There was then a few hundred euros remuneration per month.

Meanwhile, Held, who was reported sick for months after his resignation in Oppenheim, has been participating in the Bundestag again since the end of 2019.

And not to the delight of his comrades either: In April he voted against the “federal emergency brake” to contain the corona pandemic - as a member of the coalition faction.

In November 2020, he was the only SPD member to vote against the Infection Protection Act.