The Sun King Louis XIV is commonly said to have ruined the finances of the French state through his penchant for pomp and showiness.

But historians also look at the cost of the War of the Spanish Succession.

To settle this, France's citizens were squeezed.

With a little exaggeration, this image could be transferred to the situation at Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg: Patricia Schlesinger, who first resigned as chairwoman of ARD and then as director of RBB, did quite a lot to appear as the sun queen.

Every extra had to be.

It should rain red roses for her.

Lush salary increase, annual bonus, high-gloss office furnishings, company car with chauffeur also for driving the husband privately, the station pays the taxes, business lunches with crooked accounting and only then the consultant contract shunting station for the planned construction of the “digital media house”, on which the RBB Chairman of the Board of Directors Wolf-Dieter Wolf set the signals.

That's called "enrich yourself"

You can no longer keep up with the details of the – disputed – allegations.

However, the moral image has long been ingrained: at the top of this public service broadcaster, the broadcasting fee that we all have to pay, which the WDR program director Jörg Schönenborn once pompously called the “democracy fee”, serves to give himself the last to have frippery paid for.

This is called "enriching oneself", taking advantage, nepotism, clique or felt.

Many now see it that way, because the ex-director first attacked the journalists, who came up with new details about their court management every day, and whispered about a campaign, but had little to say in the matter, not even weeks later, not opposite the public, politics and our own employees.

Only the public prosecutor's office in Berlin did not find the pertinent indications of a possible radio Versailles on the Spree valid enough to investigate.

The statement from a few days ago was downright haughty.

One is not there, it was said, to cobble together an initial suspicion from suspicions of the press.

According to the motto: There is - yet - nothing to see.

Is that because of the Berlin air?

capital smog?

The RBB in Berlin gets into the greatest turbulence, but Berlin's state politicians are dozing.

The Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) is the very last to speak up and calls for “the restoration of trust in the RBB, which is jointly supported by Berlin and Brandenburg”.

And the judiciary?

Moves all of a sudden.

Patricia Schlesinger, her husband Gerhard Spörl and the head of the RBB board of directors, Wolf-Dieter Wolf, are being investigated on suspicion of infidelity and accepting benefits.

An initial suspicion was given.

Now we know why Schlesinger announced her immediate resignation on Sunday evening, one day before the broadcasting council's special session.