Investigations into bribery: House search of Berlin SPD top candidate Krach

The Hanover public prosecutor's office is investigating the SPD's top candidate for the House of Representatives election in Berlin, Steffen Krach, for bribery. On Wednesday, investigators searched Krach's private apartment in Berlin-Schöneberg, the headquarters of the Berlin SPD in the Wedding district and the state party headquarters in Hanover. The Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Tagesspiegel first reported.

The allegations relate to Krach's term as regional president of the Hanover region, a position he held until he entered the race for Berlin's governing mayor at the beginning of the year.

In the Hanover region with 1.1 million inhabitants, he chaired the supervisory board of the municipal hospital chain with ten hospitals. The suspicion: Krach received a donation from a healthcare provider in order to advocate for them in a bidding process for a property sale. The presumption of innocence applies.

Specifically, this concerns the case of an old hospital in the municipality of Lehrte. Krach's regional administration decided three years ago to close the hospital by 2030 and replace it with a health center. Steffen Krach spoke out in favor of an applicant who ultimately did not receive the contract. The extent to which Krach or the SPD of the Hanover region received a donation from that provider is now the subject of the investigation.

According to the Hannoverscher Allgemeine Zeitung, the unsuccessful applicant for whom Krach spoke on the supervisory board was G&W Vermögensverwaltung. Investigations are also underway against them and their managing director. Searches had already taken place in May 2026. The accusation: corruption.

Krach's spokesman Matthias Kruder denied the allegations to Spiegel: "As the SPD Berlin and on behalf of our state chairman and top candidate Steffen Krach, we resolutely reject the allegations." It also said: “Of course, we will cooperate fully and transparently with the investigative authorities in order to clarify the matter immediately and dispel the allegations.”

Nevertheless, the allegations come at an inopportune time for Krach, who also took over the state chairmanship of the Berlin SPD in May. There will be elections in Berlin in a week and a half. Most recently, the SPD was lagging behind in surveys between 11 and 15 percent. As a fresh face from outside, Krach was supposed to stop the decline of the party, which had already achieved its worst Berlin result with 18.4 percent in the last House of Representatives election in 2023. Nevertheless, forming a government without the SPD will hardly be possible.

Krach was regional president in Lower Saxony from 2021. He previously worked as State Secretary for Science in Berlin for seven years. In this role he was also responsible for the Charité.