The Elbtower was intended to be Olaf Scholz’s showcase project for Hamburg. Now the developer, department store billionaire René Benko, is in financial distress – and the old deal could be dangerous for the Chancellor.
On a winter morning, Olaf Scholz stands in a hall of Hamburg City Hall, wearing a black suit and gray-blue tie, and sings about a major political project. A model of Hamburg’s Hafencity is set up on a table, with a wooden tower protruding from it.
It is the beginning of February 2018. Scholz has invited people to a press conference to present plans and the builder for a skyscraper. A landmark of the city, 64 floors, around 250 meters high. Scholz strings one superlative after the next. “A special day”, “a master class design”, “a signal of ambition for Hamburg”. The investor is “an excellent real estate company.”
People who have known him for a long time say they have rarely seen Scholz so enthusiastic. It seemed as if he wanted to leave this tower to Hamburg as a legacy. Just weeks later, Scholz moved to Berlin, where the first mayor became a federal finance minister in Angela Merkel’s cabinet.
Now, a good five and a half years later, Scholz is Chancellor. And on the eastern edge of Hafencity there is a concrete frame, framed by red construction cranes that rise like needles into the sky. A few workers are sitting in containers on the construction site and have a lot of time to smoke. Construction has practically stopped, says one of them. The shell construction company stated that the builder was no longer paying the bills.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
