Again and again one encounters lies, loss of trust and Tampering. The case of Klaus Zumwinkel was a blatantly deep case. One inevitably asks: What is behind it and how did it even come to this?

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A name that creates trust

Those who thought they knew Klaus Zumwinkel well described him as a respectable man Peoplewho can be trusted. There was even that of signing contracts with a handshake Rede. The man was considered to be a happy person who was at peace with himself: he was apparently without any financial or other worries, healthy, mentally on the ball. Until then, he was also the longest-serving Dax CEO – and one of the last members of the “Deutschland AG” or “Rhenish Capitalism” network.

All of these qualities together earned Zumwinkel the nickname “Buddha”. In his 18 years of service as CEO of Deutsche Post, Zumwinkel has not only worked on the Brand of Company heavily polished, but also on his own: That's why people believed in the "Zumwinkel" brand and its radiance. Klaus Zumwinkel was the man they trusted for both employees and business partners.

The end of a networker

This is the only way to explain why Zumwinkel was considered one of the German managers who worked in politics and Economy were best connected. Especially in such circles is Trust important. Not infrequently blind, because there is often a lack of time to collect and process all the information about the other person.

To set up and to describe such networks you need a lot of patience: Zumwinkel sat on the supervisory board of Lufthansa AG, but also on the supervisory board of Arcandor / Karstadt.

Shocked managers

Zumwinkel also chaired the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom; He also oversaw Postbank and Morgan Stanley investment bank. Until the end of 2003, Zumwinkel was on the supervisory board of Allianz, one of the nuclei of the old Deutschland AG, and until August 2003 he was a member of the supervisory board of Tchibo Holding AG. In addition, he sat on the board of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and was President of the Research Institute for Future work. This Network was that Capital of the old Zumwinkel brand. And suddenly it was gone.

The shock that this caused in the German managerial world cannot be imagined enough - especially since it was felt by many of them Taxes could have evaded in a comparable way, now the urgent ones Ask triggered via a self-disclosure. Today, however, we know for sure that at least the then Bayern manager Uli Hoeneß did not do that at the time rethink has brought.

With two dimensions

Far too often, double standards are used. This also applies to the post officeExecutive: In his own function as the chairman of the supervisory board of Telekom, however, Zumwinkel had cracked down on him when he put the then chairman of the board of directors at the door in November 2006. At that time, his allegations to Ricke were that the investments of the past had not paid off and promises had not been kept.

This Criticism said Zumwinkel at the time, without conveying a feeling of pity. Even without the discussion about possible tax evasion, the Post's Supervisory Board at Zumwinkel would have long been able to measure itself against the criteria that applied to Telekom and Ricke. After all, Zumwinkel’s investments in America didn’t pay off either - on the contrary, his departure was about to retreat, ending an adventure that has cost billions of euros.

When the network no longer holds

He has therefore also not kept his promises with a view to conquering the American market. Zumwinkel wanted to go more praiseworthy than Ricke. But all high-ranking politicians he knew were in Cologne-Marienburg on a dark Thursday morning and were of no help the day after. The net no longer held.

Nevertheless, the top decision-maker was the only one to receive a bonus for 2008. Such developments have contributed to the fact that the manager's reputation is so bad. First there is no remorse in the case of mistakes, then there are high severance payments. In the case of Zumwinkel, it was pension entitlements totaling 20 million euros that he had paid out, as well as the bonus payments - more than 480.000 euros for two months.

From Zumwinkel to Hoeneß

Even the former manager of FC Bayern Munich, Uli Hoeneß, was no longer helped by his own close-knit network of relationships years later. On the contrary, he has to pay a prison sentence of three years and six months for his tax evasion (of which, however, since the beginning of 2015 he has been allowed to spend most of the time outdoors with a regular job at his football club). The Munich Regional Court found the President of FC Bayern Munich guilty in seven cases in one of the most spectacular tax proceedings in Germany in spring 2014.

The court classified the self-disclosure as incomplete, i.e. not exempting from punishment: The presiding judge said that the self-disclosure that Hoeneß had submitted a good year earlier was “not only unsuccessful, but recognisably insufficient”. The tax office was not even able to make an estimate on this basis. Hoeneß wears it himself Debt. His tax advisor didn't just forget "some note".

Make pure table in time

The court also did not accept Hoeneß's claim that his bank Shops should have done alone. The Economic Criminal Court estimated the tax damage at 28,5 million euros. It does not matter for the sentence whether further evaluations of the bank documents from Switzerland should result in even higher amounts.

The court also left open whether the self-disclosure had come too late. The judges assumed that Hoeneß had reported himself for fear that his account would be exposed by the magazine Stern: “You were driven out Anxiety before discovery." After all, Hoeneß would have had years to come clean. In fact, the Zumwinkel case was years ago at this point.

Decisions based on intuition

It is not uncommon for decisions to be made that are based on intuition. It was in this environment that Klaus Zumwinkel had his greatest moments. A wide variety of Federal Chancellors accompanied him during the transformation of the Post from an authority to a company, which is his lifetime achievement, later the Post's IPO, then also the takeover and the subsequent IPO of the Postbank - finally the fight for the highest possible minimum wage, which the competitors a makes profitable mail business in Germany impossible.

Zumwinkel tackled such difficulties - and solved them in his own way. He has reaffirmed the trust that has been placed in him again and again. He had even begun to prepare for his orderly retirement from the chairmanship of Deutsche Post. Which manager already has this foresight? And then the tax investigation rang.

When the tyrant rings once

Then the tax investigation rang at his house in the Marienburg district of Cologne. It had not yet gotten light on February 14th in 2008 when the shadow of the evil suspicion of tax evasion fell on the polished, polished Zumwinkel trademark. His excellent connections in politics were unable to protect Zumwinkel from this access.

And his numerous manager friends watched the news breathlessly: is he still at his house? Is there an arrest warrant? Has Zumwinkel just been picked up in a silver police vehicle? How long will he have to stay with the public prosecutor in Bochum? And last but not least: What exactly happened?

The biggest mistake of his life

For Zumwinkel, a compact disc with customer data from the Princely Bank in Liechtenstein, which had been leaked to the German authorities, had become fatal. On this CD - and many more were to follow - there were the names of other wealthy Germans who drove up the number of voluntary reports in the years that followed. The Zumwinkel case concerned untaxed interest income on the capital attributable to him in a foundation in the principality between Switzerland and Austria.

Was in court clearthat between 2001 and 2007 Zumwinkel had sneaked 970.000 euros past the state treasury. After all: In court, Zumwinkel called tax evasion the “biggest mistake” of his life. He even reported on "personal threats, letter and telephone terrorism, house sieges and stalkings". The judges had no sympathy: In 2008, the Bochum Regional Court sentenced Zumwinkel to 24 months probation and a fine of one million euros. But Zumwinkel no longer wanted to live in Germany, he has since moved to London.

The scope of the decision is misjudged

Zumwinkel had made another mistake a few weeks before the house search. It was about an almost paltry 4,73 million euros, which the Post boss redeemed from a share sale, the timing of which lacked any tact. Shortly before, the Swiss Post share price had risen sharply as a result of the political decision to introduce the rather high minimum wage, which reduced the value of the shares had increased significantly. At the same time, however, it was also clear that the minimum wage would cost many employees of private Swiss Post competitors their jobs.

In this situation, Zumwinkel was – allegedly or actually – “the scope of the decision not aware”, as he admitted after the stock deal became known. You could do that afterwards for dealing with that Money accept in Liechtenstein. Zumwinkel not only became the first board member of a company that is represented with its shares in the Dax share index, who was taken away by the police in front of the cameras.