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Stand: 09.09.2020 20:05 clock – NDR 1 Wave Nord
According to Günther’s account, Grote excluded written contact with the journalist in a personal conversation.
At the end of April, the then Schleswig-Holstein Minister of the Interior, Hans-Joachim Grote, had to resign at the behest of Prime Minister Daniel Günther (both CDUs). On Wednesday, Grote’s withdrawal again occupied the interior and the legal committee of the state parliament. The SPD had loaded. The leader of his parliamentary group, Ralf Stegner, still sees many unanswered questions. He also asked Grote.
VIDEO: Why did Interior Minister Grote have to leave? (7 min)
The leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Ralf Stegner, had more than 200 questions.
Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) spoke of opposition leader Ralf Stegner’s (SPD) monstrous accusations about the resignation of former Interior Minister Hans-Joachim Grote (CDU) at the Interior and Legal Committee on Wednesday. Stegner keeps asking questions. Sometimes he asks the same question three times in a row. And since you are not satisfied with the answer, then for the fourth time. Internal CDU politician Lukas Kilian jumps to his prime minister’s side and complains about Stegner’s interrogation technique. Rossa, a colleague from the FDP, asks the internal and legal committee to respect the rules. That takes a good eight hours. Initially without much knowledge.
Stegner wants to expose Günther’s wrongdoings
It should be the day of enlightenment, if opposition leader Stegner has his way. With his more than 200 questions about the forced resignation of former Interior Minister Grote, he wanted to reveal possible irregularities of Prime Minister Daniel Günther. But that doesn’t seem to work as expected at first.
Günther: claims cannot be substantiated
In his opening statement, Günther says he thinks he answered all open questions at the Legal and Home Committee in May. He complained that Ralf Stegner had already dealt with contradictions and accusations that could not be substantiated in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s meeting. Günther criticizes, for example, Stegner’s statements about the work of the senior prosecutor in Kiel. And Günther highlights that he was also satisfied with the work of his minister until April 2020.
Grote speaks in the afternoon
Hans-Joachim Grote himself entered the plenary room at around 5.30 pm. One stumbling block is that in April Günther mentioned in the Legal and Interior Committee as a reason for the expulsion that Grote had told him the falsehood about contacting a journalist. According to Günther’s statement, Grote ruled out written contact with the journalist in a personal conversation on April 14. Günther repeats this presentation this Wednesday. But that is exactly what emerges from a report from the Prosecutor’s Office of April 21.
Grote: contact never denied
Grote explained to the NDR Schleswig-Holstein in a written statement in May that he had never denied contact in writing and therefore contradicts the Prime Minister’s presentation on this crucial point. And in Wednesday’s commission, Grote stressed that he “of course never denied” that he had contact with the Kieler Nachrichten reporter. “The fact that he had no contact with the police reporter for a major outlet in Schleswig-Holstein would have been more of a mistake.” He even saw it as his job.
Ready to provide data
Hans-Joachim Grote contradicts the government’s statements on other points. It was already a problem that Hans-Joachim Grote deleted data on his cell phone. Grote emphasizes to the committee that he only reset his cell phone to factory settings, all in consultation with an attorney. The data is still available. His former Secretary of State in the Interior Ministry, Torsten Geerdts, notes that Grote did not respond to written inquiries about this. But according to his own statement, Grote responded. He even read several emails from Geerdts verbatim and emphasized to the committee that he is still ready to make his data available.
Retained disease?
Opposition leader Stegner sees more contradictions. When asked by the committee, Daniel Günther stated that his former interior minister, Grote, hid a disease from him, a so-called brain stem infarction. Grote says he was in the hospital in September 2017 and had not been on duty for two weeks. Grote reportedly informed the prime minister of his illness from the hospital. Opposition leader Stegner wants to publicly evaluate the committee’s results on Thursday.
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