By Michael Sauerbier
That’s it for Patricia Schlesinger (61)! On Monday, the RBB Broadcasting Council wants to fire the director with immediate effect. The reason: a private dinner with the chief of police in Schlesinger’s apartment, which she let the broadcaster pay for. The BZ had revealed it.
At 4 p.m., the 30 broadcasting councilors meet Monday on the 1st floor of the station on Masurenallee. Before that, they have to go through a trellis of RBB employees who are demonstrating in front of the entrance.
In 2016, the Broadcasting Council appointed Schlesinger director – and re-elected her in 2021. Now the committee is throwing the boss out!
“The RBB Broadcasting Council is recalling Patricia Schlesinger from her position as director of the RBB with immediate effect,” says Friederike von Kirchbach (67), head of the council, in the draft resolution. “The dismissal is due to reasons in the person of Ms. Schlesinger, which would justify an extraordinary termination of the service contract by the RBB.”
The Broadcasting Council meets in the RBB building on Masurenallee on Monday afternoon. Employees want to demonstrate in front of the station Photo: dpa/picture-alliance
Then von Kirchbach becomes more specific: The reason for being thrown out is “the settlement of entertainment costs for an invitation with dinner in Ms. Schlesinger’s private apartment on February 12, 2022 to the RBB as business necessary, although this was entirely or at least partially of a purely private nature.”
The BZ had presented the expense report on the Sunday before last: the director demanded 1154.87 euros from her broadcaster. After two bottles of champagne (“Veuve Clicquot”), the nine guests are said to have emptied twelve bottles of wine for the four-course meal. Among them police chief Barbara Slowik and Charité boss Heyo Kroemer with their spouses.
The following day, the public prosecutor’s office initiated corruption investigations. Slowik and Kroemer promptly explained that it was a “purely private” invitation. You would not have known that the RBB paid for the hospitality.
Without this explanation, both would also have come into the focus of the investigators. The “end” for Schlesinger – if two thirds of the Broadcasting Council vote for it today.
The RBB board of directors must decide whether the artistic director will receive a severance payment after being kicked out and will keep her pension entitlements. Vice boss Dorett König wants to clarify this with lawyers today. Also whether the broadcaster can demand repayments from Schlesinger.
Individual members of the Broadcasting Council, the journalists’ association and politicians have long been demanding that there is no “golden handshake” for Schlesinger.