The sale of the Heinz-Ulm-Haus in Langgöns in the context of the AWO scandal is still facing legal clarification. In a few months, the deal is to be negotiated in a court in Darmstadt. The former chairman of the AWO district association Hessen-Süd, Willy Jost from Buseck, also has to deal with the allegation of infidelity.
A certain calm has returned where a good year ago there was still chaos and excitement. When here, at the AWO Hessen-Süd, a task force headed by the former Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler-Gmelin scrutinized documents, questioned dubious transactions and tried to clarify the AWO scandal. And when parts of the board of directors literally fought them – the then chairman Willy Jost is said to have loudly thrown Däubler-Gmelin out of a meeting with the AWO federal association.
Soon, however, the current calm should give way when the legal processing begins and a suspicious business in the district area makes the headlines again: the sale of the AWO nursing home in Langgöns five years ago.
The deal is said to play a central role in an upcoming court case at the Darmstadt Regional Court. The AWO district association Hessen-Süd has filed a civil suit against former responsible persons as well as against former board members, also against the long-time SPD local politician Jost, who lives in Buseck. Another court case is expected in Frankfurt, where public prosecutors have been investigating the matter since 2018.
“We expect negotiations to take place in Darmstadt at the beginning of next year,” says Ulrich Bauch, today’s managing director of AWO Hessen-Süd. He then adds very clearly what the court proceedings are about from his point of view: “What has taken place here is the attempt to take over a welfare organization in a hostile manner.”
The allegation is directed in particular against a former responsible person at AWO Hessen-Süd. This is said to have enriched himself and business partners with illegal deals. The final report of the task force, which is available to the editors, leaves little doubt about the allegation of criminal business. One question, however, is likely to be more difficult to answer in court: What was the role of the board of directors that approved the business? Did the volunteers around Jost not understand the alleged criminal events out of gullibility? Did you overlook it? Or were they even involved?
In November 2016, 3.05 million euros flowed into the sale of the Heinz-Ulm-Haus by AWO to a limited partnership (KG). The AWO then rented the building from this KG, but at apparently unfavorable conditions. “There were such bad leases that it is hardly possible to manage them properly,” says Bauch.
It is questionable enough that one of the former responsible persons at AWO Hessen-Süd was involved in this KG himself and founded it with business partners from his environment. In addition, however, the building in Langgöns, as today’s AWO managing director Bauch emphasizes, is said to have been sold well below its value, by 550,000 euros too little. The aim of one of the previous managers is said to have been to sell the Heinz-Ulm-Haus for himself and his business partners at a higher price.
In fact, AWO Hessen-Süd was in a financial emergency at the time, it had liabilities of 37.1 million euros. With the sale of the Heinz-Ulm-Haus, the association was liquid again, but was then stuck in an unfavorable tenancy. The man against whom the allegations are mainly directed is said to have taken advantage of this situation for his own profit. When it was sold, the AWO is said to have been given the prospect of being able to buy back the Heinz-Ulm-Haus at a significantly lower price. However, these promises were not stipulated in the contract.
An almost identical deal a year earlier with the sale of the building of an AWO nursing home in Bruchköbel, also in this case to a limited partnership with the participation of one of the former responsible persons at AWO, illustrates that there may be a scam. The sales price there was 4.6 million euros. Four years later, the KG resold the building – for 10.1 million euros.
The AWO Hessen-Süd has cut all business relationships with the man against whom the allegations are mainly directed – with a few exceptions in which there are still hurdles. The Heinz-Ulm-Haus is still owned by the limited partnership in which it is involved.
The question remains which role the board of the AWO Hessen-Süd played in the deals that it signed. In a complaint against unknown persons, which triggered the public prosecutor’s investigation in Frankfurt, the AWO Federal Association raised the charge of breach of trust, “at least through gross negligence”.
Former people, says Bauch, led the AWO Hessen-Süd “with a mixture of greed and ineptitude into a deplorable state and sealed themselves off from any supervision.” Bauch says: “The management relationships at that time were similar to North Korea, only without the prison camp.” Against this background, clearly excessive salaries and fees are said to have been paid.
Board members have also benefited, however, with personal loans at unusually high rates of up to 6.5 percent. Jost admitted to the Hessischer Rundfunk that he had given a personal loan of over 100,000 euros for two years and thus earned 12,000 euros in interest as a volunteer. The aim was to close the liquidity gaps at AWO, explains Jost. The Busecker has not been the chairman of AWO Hessen-Süd since November last year. However, he did not go voluntarily. He was removed from office by an arbitration tribunal of the AWO Federal Association. When asked by this newspaper, Jost does not want to comment on the allegations. The new board of directors and the managing director, he only says, are bringing up things “that don’t exist.”
Bauch has been the new managing director since September 2020. A new culture has moved in, he says. Transparency is the focus. “And with the newly elected district executive, there is something that has not actually existed in the past few years: supervision.”
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