Peter Feldmann is not the only mayor of a large German city who is threatened with trouble after investigations by the public prosecutor.

A look at other cases shows how different the reactions are - from the politicians themselves, but also from the city parliaments and local councils, which they head.

Anna Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Feldmann's counterpart in Halle, the non-party Bernd Wiegand, was provisionally removed from office by the State Administration Office in June last year and is only receiving 50 percent of his salary.

The city council had already suspended him from service in April 2021 after a motion by the Left, Greens, SPD and FDP, for which a simple majority was sufficient.

The reason was the so-called vaccination affair: Weigand and his office manager are said to have arranged for nine members of the city pandemic staff he heads and eight city councilors to be vaccinated, even though they were not yet entitled to it.

Then they are said to have covered up the procedure.

At the beginning of March, the public prosecutor's office in Halle brought charges against Weigand and the office manager for allegations of joint misappropriation and falsification of evidence-relevant data in a particularly serious case.

Weigand has repeatedly failed in court with appeals against his temporary suspension.

The Federal Court of Justice reversed the acquittal

An indictment by the public prosecutor's office also cost the former mayor of Hanover Stefan Schostok (SPD) his job: in April 2019, just days after the indictment of serious breach of trust was brought, he became active himself and had retired.

However, he emphasized that he was not aware of any wrongdoing.

"The decision is now up to the competent court," he said that day.

He is said to have known that his office manager had illegally received allowances of around 49,500 euros.

The Hanover Regional Court acquitted Schostok in 2020, and the Federal Court of Justice overturned the acquittal.

The second process is currently underway.

There, Schostok explained that he had not been aware of the implications, that it had been a turbulent time and that documents had been distributed in order to "criminalize" him.

But officials have also been at the center of investigations in the Rhine-Main area.

The most prominent cases of the recent past are those of the former Mayor of Wiesbaden, Sven Gerich (SPD) and the former Mayor of Eschborn, Mathias Geiger (FDP).

Gerich got around an indictment because the Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office dropped the investigation into taking advantage of a luxury trip to Andalusia with the former managing director of the municipal holding company, Ralph Schüler (CDU).

Shortly after the events became known, Gerich announced that he wanted to complete his term of office, but that he would no longer run for office in order to protect his family, his employees and himself.

He no longer wants to offer his opponents any more points of attack and avert damage from the city's institutions.

Not interested in a long process

A year and a half later, the court was convicted of accepting an advantage.

The district court in Munich imposed a penalty order “clearly in the five-digit range”, which he accepted.

The court has a criminal record.

The proceedings involved perks granted by the Munich catering entrepreneur Roland Kuffler, such as an invitation to his villa in St. Tropez.

According to the public prosecutor's office, the benefits added up to more than 20,000 euros.

Gerich said that "despite a different view of things" he had no interest in a potentially long process and had therefore accepted the penalty order.

Mathias Geiger, on the other hand, retained the mayor's office in Eschborn, despite investigations into treason, an indictment and a fine - which was later reduced - until he lost the next election in autumn 2019 to his challenger from the CDU.

Shortly after the conviction by the Frankfurt district court, a motion by the CDU, SPD and Greens to vote out of office failed due to the necessary two-thirds majority of the city councillors.

After his election defeat, Geiger said he was resigning from office with his head held high: "I wasn't sawed off."

The former Mayor of Mainz, Jens Beutel (SPD), who died in 2019, forestalled a voting procedure in 2011 by announcing that he was retiring.

The CDU, ÖDP and the citizens' movement Pro Mainz had announced such a procedure in the city council after Beutel had been criticized for, among other things, unpaid glasses of wine on a trip to Rwanda.

A year earlier, for the so-called Capri trip, Beutel had accepted a penalty order of 80 daily rates of 120 euros each for breach of trust.

The indictment related to a trip to Italy in 2004, in which Beutel had taken part as a member of the supervisory board of the Groß-Gerau overland plant.

In May 2003, the then Mayor of Hanau, Margret Härtel (CDU), was voted out with 89.5 percent of the vote – a few days after the Hanau public prosecutor had brought charges against her for breach of trust and fraud.

It was about a private trip in a company car to a Warsaw clinic, two visits to restaurants with relatives and a private wedding present.

The district court in Hanau dropped the proceedings nine months later against payment of 4,000 euros.