By Roberto Lamprecht
Second division club Hertha BSC’s regular general meeting has been going on since 11 a.m. in the exhibition hall. And it started with a crashing earthquake!
BILD learned: Two Hertha bosses completely unexpectedly announced their resignation to the club this Sunday shortly before the start of the meeting.
According to BILD information, supervisory board boss Klaus Brüggemann (64) and supervisory board member Renate Döhmer (73) are leaving the Blue and Whites after several decades and will not be on site at MV either
Brüggemann is considered an official who consistently represents his points of view. Since the election of Hertha President Kay Bernstein (43) at the end of June 2022, he has been a thorn in the side of some people in the fight for the new distribution of power with his clear stance and critical comments.
Brüggemann to BILD: “I don’t change my stance and if it’s all about hypocrisy, vanity and power of individuals and not about the club, I’m out! Plus, professional football doesn’t really work as an alternative fan project!”
A clear criticism of President Kay Bernstein and his management team.
On Sunday there should have been the third vote-out motion against him in a row at the meeting. This will no longer happen. Brüggemann resigns – and Döhmer joins Brüggemann out of solidarity.
Supervisory board shrunk to three members
In his declaration of resignation, Brüggemann states the reasons for his resignation. Brüggemann settles accounts with President Bernstein:
“Kay Bernstein is certainly a nice person in his private life and he has provided outstanding support from the curve, but he is visibly overwhelmed with the office of president and especially with a possible paid CEO position. Value orientation, no nepotism, bringing people together is something you should not only propagate in the election campaign, but also live when you are in office and not counteract it.”
Brüggemann thus reveals that he considers Bernstein unsuitable to serve as president. At the same time, he mentions something that has been whispered in Hertha circles for a long time: Bernstein is allegedly aiming to move to the paid position of Hertha CEO. Brüggemann does not provide any evidence for this thesis.
In addition, he accuses Bernstein of nepotism, which would mean that key positions in the club are given to Bernstein confidants without qualifications or competence being given priority.
Brüggemann also criticizes Bernstein’s actions by writing:
“Insulting the shareholder, main sponsor and the associations naturally brings applause out of the curve. But even with justified critical questioning, it harms the cause and HERTHA BSC. Running a club is very complex and you need an economic and sporting strategy and expertise.”
With this, Brüggemann is targeting numerous statements made by Bernstein, who, among other things, openly admitted that he wanted to get rid of investor 777 and spoke about the fact that a revolution in the organized fan scene was underway in football, which, according to Bernstein, could no longer be stopped.
Brüggemann also reveals an open conflict with his supervisory board colleague Torsten-Jörn Klein. This is how he writes:
“In addition, Dr. Klein, a chairman of the supervisory board who, unlike me, always wanted to have a say in decisions, was involved in almost all of the key decisions that led the club to the abyss until the early summer of 2022. The fact that my predecessor has made life difficult for me over the last year and a half and, as I have heard, has repeatedly said that he has to prevent me and will do everything to ensure that he takes over the chairmanship again is not only unsportsmanlike and is damaging to HERTHA BSC .”
To explain: Brüggemann surprisingly took over the chairmanship from Klein after the supervisory board was re-elected in 2022. The Hamburg entrepreneur was very surprised by this. Klein is considered an unconditional supporter of President Bernstein. He is said to have ambitions to take over the chairmanship of the supervisory board again. There were also loud arguments between Klein and Brüggemann in recent meetings.
It was about Gersbeck
There are other reasons that motivated Brüggemann to resign his position under this Hertha leadership.
Most recently it was heard that there was a falling out between Brüggemann and Bernstein because the ex-supervisory board boss spoke out against the continued employment of goalkeeper Marius Gersbeck (28) for moral reasons after he had gone to court for serious bodily harm following a fight have to take responsibility.
Nevertheless, he was recently pardoned by Hertha (particularly at the insistence of Boss Bernstein, who used to be in the East Curve with Gersbeck as Ultra). A no-go for Brüggemann! After all, the capital club has lived by a code of values for many years and condemns all violence.
Now Hertha boss Brüggemann is pulling the emergency brake!
Klein should soon take over the chairmanship of the supervisory board again. With Scott Körber and ex-professional Andreas Schmidt, the committee still has the necessary number of members to be able to act.
With Brüggemann (including a lecturer in sports economics and book author) and Döhmer, Hertha is losing important voices in tough times…
BILD has Brüggemann’s letter of resignation in its entirety. Read here:
