What does the former editor-in-chief of the "Bild" newspaper actually do?

When the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer traveled to Kyiv last weekend, Kai Diekmann was on board, to everyone's surprise.

He can be seen in pictures, for example during a visit to Bucha, the scene of obvious war crimes.

There were no journalists on the trip to Moscow that Nehammer set out for via Istanbul on Sunday evening.

Nehammer had arranged for a meeting without pictures with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But Diekmann went with him, he is no longer an active journalist.

In the Vienna Federal Chancellery it was said that he had advised Nehammer, but free of charge, and had traveled at his own expense.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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This brought the opposition into action in Vienna.

The liberal neos have made a parliamentary question.

Among other things, they want to know which services Nehammer or the Chancellery used “from Kai Diekmann or a company that is economically attributable to him” and what was paid for them.

Neos MP Nikolaus Scherak reprimands the commissioning of external service providers, even though the size of the ministerial offices has increased significantly in recent years.

The right-wing FPÖ also criticizes that there are "enough experienced diplomats at home who should be consulted here".

FPÖ man Christian Hafenecker is also bothered by the fact that another free counselor has traveled to Kyiv, as previously during Nehammer's first visit to Berlin: Katharina Nehammer,

the Chancellor's wife, according to official information, also at his own expense.

"The Federal Chancellor apparently sees his office as an ÖVP family business, where his own wife and consultants hired by the ÖVP set the direction."

After leaving the Axel Springer publishing house, Diekmann founded the PR agency “Storymachine”, among other things, together with the event manager Michael Mronz and Philipp Jessen (formerly “Stern”).

Ursula von der Leyen was one of her customers, as was the CDU.

An unsuccessful accompaniment of the so-called Heinsberg study on the Covid pandemic by “Storymachine” made negative headlines.

Diekmann was not personally involved in everything, and reportedly not in Heinsberg.

Diekmann interviewed Putin several times

But he was involved in the ÖVP, of which Karl Nehammer is the chairman.

The contact came about three years ago through Katharina Nehammer: She was an employee of the then Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Sobotka, and Diekmann met Sobotka and she at a lecture.

"Storymachine" was hired by the ÖVP "club", i.e. the parliamentary group.

An employee, the former deputy German government spokesman Georg Streiter, is to help the parliamentary committee of inquiry "on ÖVP corruption" to pull out the poisonous tooth.

It has now become known that the company was also hired to support the party's marketing reinvention after Sebastian Kurz's departure.

In the background it can be heard that the Nehammers met Diekmann and the former boxer and brother of Kiev mayor Wladimir Klitschko in a hotel restaurant during the said first visit to Berlin.

Since then, the project of a trip to Kyiv and possibly also to Moscow has been spun.

From his journalistic past, Diekmann not only has contacts in Ukraine, for example with the Klitschko brothers.

He interviewed Putin several times at the time.

Therefore, he is said to have had a personal interest in the matter.

He then traveled “pro bono”, so to speak.

What he might have given Nehammer from his experiences with Putin would be advice on how to counter the feints of the KGB man.

It would not be surprising if some in the Chancellery and Foreign Ministry were of the opinion that this could have been done with on-board resources.

Another question is what PR consulting says about the purpose of the venture.

In any case, Diekmann – again as a private individual – rejected criticism of Nehammer's trip to Moscow on social networks.

The Innsbruck political professor Gerhard Mangott, who had warned in advance on ORF that Nehammer could supply Putin with "terrific television pictures", said the former "Bild" boss via Twitter: "At some point we have to redefine the term 'expert'."