The head of the administrative board at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), Benjamin Ehlers, unexpectedly resigned from the chairmanship of the supervisory board on Tuesday. The RBB’s board office confirmed to the Catholic News Agency (KNA) upon request that Ehlers had resigned from his position with immediate effect. He will, however, remain on the administrative board as a normal member.
The resignation came one day before the next regular meeting of the board, scheduled for Wednesday. The “Bild” newspaper first reported this. The board of directors monitors the director’s management and is responsible for important financial decisions.
As the RBB reports in its own case, Ehlers blamed a conflict with his deputy, the architect Dagmar Tille, in his letter of resignation. She had called a special meeting of the board of directors while he was on vacation without informing him. According to his own account, however, Ehlers was contactable, according to the RBB.
The special meeting in question dealt with a possible conflict of interest within the administrative board that had been simmering for some time. Specifically, it concerns its member Juliane Schütt, who was herself an RBB editor until 2007, now works as a lawyer and is married to a freelance employee of RBB radio.
Accusation of lack of transparency
This also concerns the question of whether Schütt correctly disclosed her family relationship with the RBB employee before her election as a member of the administrative board by the Broadcasting Council in April 2023. The chairman of the Broadcasting Council, Oliver Bürgel, had recommended that Schütt temporarily suspend her office until the matter was clarified. However, Schütt had already rejected this in July. In addition, Schütt is said to be close friends with the new RBB program director Katrin Günther.
According to some committee members, this means that Schütt cannot fully fulfill her duties on the supervisory board. Chairman of the Board of Directors Ehlers has also stated several times that he would “consider it wise” for Schütt to resign from her position, reports the RBB. The Broadcasting Council dealt with the case at a special meeting on August 21st, which was largely closed to the public, but according to consistent media reports, did not reach a final conclusion.
Ehlers, who wanted to raise the issue with the board of directors after his vacation, now accuses his deputy of having “done everything” to prevent his attendance at the special meeting. “This behavior represents such a blatant breach of trust that I will not accept it. It is reminiscent of times at rbb that should really be a thing of the past,” the RBB quoted from the letter from the Cottbus lawyer.
