Fraud is not a failure of the system. It is an operating fluid. Amnesia is not a failure of memory. It is an operating fluid. Not because everyone is wicked, but because the structures enable fraud, conceal it, absorb it and finally allow it to be forgotten. The informal cartel of ignorance protects the formal cartel of self-enrichment. Collective amnesia makes the next fraud possible. And the system runs on as if nothing had happened — because nothing may have happened.
The ancient Greeks already knew this. The profile of their god Hermes says it all: god of merchants — and of thieves. At the same time. In a single profile. No contradiction, no excuse. The Greeks did not distinguish between honest trade and fraud and declare: the one is good, the other evil. They recognised that both have the same god. The same patron. The same nature.
On the first day of his life Hermes steals Apollo's cattle — and enchants him with music so that the theft is forgotten. He promises Zeus "no longer to lie outright" — which is not a commitment to the truth but a legal loophole. He becomes the messenger of the gods: officially in the service of the system, unofficially playing his own game. And as messenger of the gods he is the one who provides for the information asymmetry in the system — an important basis for successful transactions. The messenger of the gods decides what he delivers and what he does not. He knows all sides — gods and humans, the living and the dead, Olympus and the underworld. He knows more than everyone else. That is not his side function. That is his power.
That is the foundation of every successful fraud: the fraudster knows what the defrauded does not know. Wirecard knew that the 1.9 billion did not exist — the investor did not. VW knew that the emissions figures had been manipulated — the buyer did not. Esch knew what the Oppenheim funds really cost — the investors did not. The revolving-door consultants knew which contracts were coming — the taxpayer did not. The system actively produces ignorance among those who are defrauded and among those who are supposed to exercise oversight. Disappearing files, shredded documents, secret audit reports, blocked drives — that is not chance. That is function. That is Hermes at work.
The list that follows is an exhibit. Readers can assess it for themselves.
I. The List — Politics and Parties
Flick manager von Brauchitsch distributes DM 26 million to all the parties in the Bundestag — CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP. The coalition's attempt at an amnesty fails in the face of public outrage. Lambsdorff and Friderichs convicted of tax evasion. Kohl pleads "gaps in memory."
1.5 to 2 million marks accepted illegally — Kohl never names the donors, his word of honour placed above the constitution. Arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber hands DM 100,000 in cash to Wolfgang Schäuble — who first denies it before the parliamentary committee of inquiry, then admits it and resigns. Schreiber himself flees to Canada, is extradited after years, and convicted. The Hessian CDU books slush money as "Jewish bequests." Essential files on the Leuna connection disappear from the Federal Chancellery. The Kohl system protects itself to the very end.
DM 80 million in bribes from the French oil company Elf Aquitaine to win the privatisation of the Leuna works. Kohl and Mitterrand are said to have known about it. Never fully cleared up.
SPD network, bribery in the award of contracts for waste incineration plants. Sums running into millions, several convictions — among them the CDU politician Karl-Heinz Meys.
Several CDU/CSU politicians enrich themselves personally from mask deals during the pandemic — Nüßlein, Löbel, Tandler. Spahn's ministry distributes defective masks to the homeless. Prison sentence for Andrea Tandler.
Several CDU/CSU members of parliament accept bribes from Azerbaijan and represent Azerbaijani interests in the Council of Europe against criticism on human rights.
Meetings between Hamburg's mayor Scholz and Warburg bankers about tax reclaims arising from the Cum-Ex scandal. Gaps in memory. Files deleted. Not yet conclusively cleared up.
II. The List — Business and Finance
Largest union-owned housing company — mismanagement, management helping itself. Sold for DM 1. Identity crisis of the DGB, the German Trade Union Confederation.
Union-owned retail giant — falsified balance sheets, slush funds, self-enrichment. Damage: over DM 800 million.
Speculative losses on oil futures. Damage: over DM 2 billion. Near-collapse of one of the largest German corporations.
Property developer flees with forged loan documents. Banks kept granting loans despite obvious warning signs. Damage: over DM 5 billion.
World market leader in sports flooring — forged invoices, a Ponzi scheme. DM 1.8 billion in liabilities against DM 40 million in real orders. The finance director flees and is caught in the Philippines.
Germany's largest shipbuilding group misappropriates DM 850 million in subsidies intended for its East German subsidiaries. The chief executive is convicted of breach of trust — suspended sentence.
3,000 supposed horizontal drilling machines — 270 actually existed. A Ponzi scheme. Damage: over €1 billion.
Inflated balance sheets in the Neuer Markt hype. The Haffa brothers convicted of share-price manipulation. Symptom of an entire era of stock-market fraud.
Ackermann, Funk and Zwickel hand out €62 million in "appreciation bonuses" after the Vodafone takeover. Proceedings discontinued against payment of €5.8 million.
Works council members at the company's expense — prostitutes, luxury trips, organised by HR director Volkert. A symbol of the entanglement of management and employee representation.
Budapest 2007: the Gellért Baths become an open-air brothel for the 100 best sales agents — 20 prostitutes with coloured wristbands, stamped on the forearm after each service. The welcome reception on the Danube: a launch with topless hostesses. The costs were to be deducted from tax. But Budapest was not an isolated case — Hamburg-Mannheimer had repeatedly invited successful agents to the swingers' hotel "Hedonism II" in Jamaica. When the affair came to light, Ergo had examined only 580 of a total of 3,500 incentive trips. Deutscher Herold (Zurich Group) also sent its best agents to "Hedonism II." Ergo's advertising slogan at the same time: "Versichern heißt Verstehen" ("Insuring means understanding"). The solution Ergo announced: in future, spouses were to come along on the trips.
Josef Esch starts out as a bricklaying foreman from Troisdorf in the Rhineland — a man of humble background, soon a minor property tycoon on the outskirts of Cologne. In the 1990s he rises into the top circles of Cologne society and, together with the counts and barons of the Sal. Oppenheim bank, launches property funds worth billions — the Oppenheim-Esch funds. Their centrepiece: large construction projects with the public sector, among them the new building of the Cologne trade fair. The funds become an insider tip for multimillionaires and billionaires — first-class returns at the taxpayer's expense. Soft ancillary costs make up as much as 40 per cent of total costs. Cologne's chief municipal director Ruschmeier moves to the Oppenheim-Esch holding company. The public prosecutor investigates — the investigations are initially dropped. Also in on it: Thomas Middelhoff, once a celebrated Bertelsmann star and later the supposed saviour of Karstadt. The big party ends in court: Esch convicted of tax evasion and of conducting banking business without a licence. The aristocratic Oppenheim partners of aggravated breach of trust. Middelhoff of breach of trust — arrested in the courtroom, since insolvent. Sal. Oppenheim ends in disaster. In 2019 the ARD films the scandal as a satire — "Der König von Köln" ("The King of Cologne"). Do hamer all jet von — Cologne dialect for "we all get something out of it."
René Benko, son of a municipal employee and a kindergarten teacher from Innsbruck — a school dropout with a gold chain and a leased Ferrari — converts attics at the age of 17 and sells them at high prices. From this grows Signa Holding: KaDeWe, Karstadt, the Chrysler Building in New York, Selfridges in London, the Elbtower in Hamburg, Hotel Bauer in Venice, the Goldenes Quartier in Vienna. In 2019 Benko's fortune is estimated at $5 billion — based on inflated property valuations. The supervisory boards include former chancellor Gusenbauer, former vice-chancellor Riess-Hahn, former bank chiefs, Robert Peugeot. Star guest at the gala dinner: Sebastian Kurz. Do hamer all jet von. In 2023 the house of cards collapses — the largest insolvency in Austrian economic history. Total damage in the tens of billions. Benko hides assets in foundations and, after the collapse, resides in a luxury villa at a rent of €235,000 a month — officially paid by his mother. Arrested in January 2025. October 2025: first conviction, two years without parole. The serious charges are still to come.
€50 million in bribes for bus and truck contracts — added to the purchase prices, and thus co-financed by the taxpayers of the purchasing states. Fine: €250 million.
At least 4,300 bribe payments between 1999 and 2006 — contracts bought in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Greece. Slush funds in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Total cost: €2.9 billion.
HeidelbergCement, Schwenk, Dyckerhoff and others — decades of price and quota fixing. The highest fine in German history.
Banks and shareholders reclaim capital gains tax they never paid. Damage: up to €32 billion — the largest tax fraud in the history of the Federal Republic. The money was never fully recovered.
Illegal defeat devices in at least 11 million vehicles worldwide — the largest industrial scandal in German history. Customers and authorities defrauded for years. Damage so far: almost €30 billion.
54,000 small investors lose €3.5 billion — containers listed in the balance sheet do not exist. Germany's largest private insolvency.
€1.9 billion on the balance sheet — non-existent. BaFin, the financial supervisory authority, pursued critics instead of uncovering the fraud. A DAX company files for insolvency.
III. The List — Churches
1,670 accused clergy, at least 3,677 documented victims — the study calls this a "lower-bound estimate." A study of unreported cases estimates up to 114,000 victims. Perpetrators were systematically transferred instead of reported. Victims were silenced.
At least 9,355 people affected according to extrapolations, 3,500 accused. Of 20 regional churches, only one supplied its personnel files. The disciplinary files covered only 40 per cent of the accused — the majority remained invisible.
Systematic mistreatment, beatings, forced labour, sexual abuse in church and state homes. Only the Round Table from 2006 onwards brought a first reckoning. Statutes of limitation protected most of the perpetrators.
Roberto Calvi, chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, was involved in laundering drug money and in secret financial transactions of the Vatican, the Mafia and the secret lodge Propaganda Due (P2). On 18 June 1982 he is found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London — officially suicide, in fact never cleared up. The Vatican denies any complicity but pays $240 million in compensation to 88 creditor banks. In 1987 Italy issues an arrest warrant for the head of the IOR, Archbishop Marcinkus — the Vatican never hands him over. In 2010 a Roman assize court requests documents from the Vatican to clarify the case — the Vatican never complies.
In 2009 the Vatican appears in a US State Department report on a list of states monitored on suspicion of money laundering. In 2010 the Italian public prosecutor freezes €23 million in IOR accounts. IOR head Gotti Tedeschi has to resign. Speculation that Benedict XVI resigned because of pressure from the Vatican's financial mafia has never been refuted. Pope Francis attempts reforms — with limited success.
IV. The List — Bundeswehr and Security Agencies
A senior Bundeswehr general dismissed on the basis of false rumours of homosexuality — an affair of state, Defence Minister Wörner damaged.
Nine racially motivated murders between 2000 and 2007 — for years investigated in the wrong direction, the victims' families placed under suspicion. Informants of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the immediate NSU milieu. Files shredded. An employee of the Office warned suspects of raids. The so-called Office for the Protection of the Constitution has disqualified itself as a protector of the constitution.
Far-right networks in the Bundeswehr and the police — active and former elite soldiers, police officers and intelligence officers prepare for "Day X." Enemy lists, weapons caches, body bags and quicklime hoarded. A KSK company disbanded. The structures remained.
Rape fantasies, violent rituals, Hitler salutes, drug use. First indications ignored as early as 2024 — the public prosecutor is investigating 16 cases.
V. The List — Consultancy Affairs and the Revolving Door
The consultancy affairs are not an isolated phenomenon — they are the structural principle of the revolving door between public service and the private sector. Consultants are brought into ministries, award contracts to their old firms, and return to the private sector with experience of the state and networks. The Court of Audit criticises, the government promises improvement, the consultants grow richer.
Defence Minister von der Leyen brings McKinsey consultant Katrin Suder into the ministry as state secretary. Suder throws the doors wide open: over €100 million a year flows to McKinsey, KPMG and Accenture — in more than 80 per cent of the contracts, procurement rules were broken. Suder's acquaintance Noetzel raises his firm Accenture's revenue from the client Bundeswehr from €459,000 to €20 million. Result: the Bundeswehr did not get better, the consultants got richer. In 2019 von der Leyen becomes President of the European Commission. Suder returns to McKinsey — decorated with the Bundeswehr Cross of Honour in Gold.
The Federal Court of Audit repeatedly calls for consultancy reports to be published — the public interest "weighs heavily," since consultants are not democratically legitimated yet influence government decisions. No federal government heeds the appeal. The reports remain secret. FragDenStaat finally publishes them in 2025 under the Freedom of Information Act — the scale of the use of consultants across all ministries had not previously been publicly known.
The Bundeswehr consultancy affair is the best-known example of a structural pattern: executives from consultancy firms are brought into ministries, award contracts there to their old firms or networks, and after their term of office return to the private sector with knowledge of the state and contacts. The Court of Audit documents this repeatedly. Consequences: marginal.
VI. The List — Banks and the Financial System
Together with other major banks, Deutsche Bank manipulates the global benchmark interest rate Libor — affecting millions of loan contracts worldwide. In 2008 alone, more than half a billion euros in extra profit from manipulated rates. Fine: $2.5 billion. No banker convicted in Germany.
A global network of journalists analyses leaked FinCEN reports: Deutsche Bank transfers billions for the Mafia, oligarchs and corrupt politicians — and while it does report suspicious transactions internally, it carries them out anyway. The business with dirty money was priced in as an acceptable risk.
VII. The List — Science and Universities
Science is regarded as the counter-principle to the Megamachine — truth instead of interest, method instead of power. Reality is more complicated. Here too there is self-enrichment, cartels of ignorance and institutional fraud.
Institutional fraud
President Neugebauer and other board members waste taxpayers' money for years: dinners for €8,000, hotel nights at up to €663 instead of the permitted €115, top-of-the-range company cars, travel costs for partners. On 37 out of 37 trips, board member X exceeds the cost limits. The Federal Ministry of Research had known about it for years — without consequences. Neugebauer refuses to resign and finally leaves without reference to the allegations. Investigations for breach of trust. A skat-playing friend receives a dubious consultancy contract. Budget: €2.9 billion, of which €977 million from the federal government.
In a second report, the Federal Court of Audit accuses Fraunhofer of "unlawful practice" in its basic funding — and certifies that the Federal Ministry of Research "considerably obstructed" the audit: files were "partly empty," access to drives was refused.
Plagiarism as a career instrument
Federal Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had pieced together substantial parts of his doctoral thesis from other people's work — without attribution. The University of Bayreuth: the falsifications were a "work pattern that shaped the thesis." Doctorate revoked, resignation. Guttenberg declares he had copied "unconsciously."
Federal Education Minister Annette Schavan — of all people the minister responsible for scientific integrity — plagiarised in her dissertation. "Deliberate deception" is the verdict. Resignation. New post: German ambassador to the Vatican.
Federal Family Minister Franziska Giffey resigns after allegations of plagiarism — and shortly afterwards becomes Governing Mayor of Berlin. The revocation of her doctorate has not slowed her political rise.
Guttenberg, Schavan and Giffey are the prominent cases — but by 2026 VroniPlag Wiki has documented serious plagiarism in over 250 German dissertations. Among them politicians, judges, managers. Most never became public. The knowledge of it exists — and keeps silent. That is the most passive form of susceptibility to blackmail.
VIII. The List — Sport
State-organised doping — thousands of athletes without their knowledge, permanent damage to health, deaths. Dealt with only after reunification — incompletely.
West German cycling and athletics, too, systematically doped — with the knowledge of officials and doctors.
€6.7 million paid to FIFA — possible vote-buying for the award of the 2006 World Cup. Never fully cleared up. Beckenbauer receives a lifetime ban — shortly before his death.
IX. The List — The Infrastructure of Fraud
The cases that do not commit fraud themselves — but enable, organise and industrialise fraud for others — deserve a category of their own. Here fraud is not an individual act but a business model.
An informant of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service, sells a tax CD with data on 1,400 German tax evaders for €4.2 million. Most prominent case: Deutsche Post chief Klaus Zumwinkel, arrested live on television. Estimated damage: €4 billion in evaded taxes in Germany alone. What is special: the state buys stolen data in order to pursue its own citizens who are stealing from it. Liechtenstein was only one of many arenas — Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands ran in parallel.
11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — 214,000 shell companies, 140 politicians from 50 countries, numerous Germans. Organised by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Not an individual fraud — but the blueprint of the global Megamachine of asset concealment. Legally structured, morally unambiguous, hard to get hold of under criminal law. Criminal consequences in Germany: marginal.
What links these cases: fraud is not the exception but the product. Entire industries — tax firms, banks, consultancies, small states that rent themselves out as financial centres — live from the fact that money can be made invisible. The Liechtenstein CD and the Panama Papers made the infrastructure briefly visible. Then it went on being used.
X. The Pattern — Fraud, Outrage, Amnesia, Repetition
A Rhineland witticism hits the core: "Every corruption I am not part of is evil." The sentence is neither a confession nor an excuse. It is the sharpest thing a person can say about himself: I know my nature. I call it by its name. Moral outrage at fraud is almost always selective — we are outraged at the corruption that excludes us or harms us. The corruption we profit from is either invisible or has a different name. In the Rhineland people rarely use the hard word corruption. Klüngel — cosy cronyism — sounds so much nicer, or better still the circumlocution: we know each other and we help each other. Who could possibly object to that.
And then the second Rhineland principle: "Do hamer all jet von" — we all get something out of it. Everyone involved is granted the blessings of the fraud. So nobody has a reason to blow up the cartel — as long as no one with scruples or no self-righteous stickler for justice has been admitted to the group. That is why the selection criteria for the beneficiaries are usually very strict. The cartel of ignorance is no accident — it is selection.
The list could be extended further. But the pattern is already visible. It is always the same.
First, the fraud. It takes place over years or decades. It is seen by many and reported by no one — because the cartel of ignorance works, because silence is rewarded and speaking out punished, because the formal-legal façade of the honourable merchant or the pious priest is maintained for as long as possible.
Second, the discovery. Usually by chance, through a single person who does not keep silent, through a journalist who is persistent, through a tax investigator who finds a cash book. Rarely through the system itself — for the system has an interest in the fraud not being discovered.
Third, the outrage. Committees of inquiry, debates about resignations, fines, occasionally convictions. The penalty is almost always smaller than the profit. Wirecard: main perpetrator on the run. Cum-Ex: 32 billion in damage, a fraction recovered. Siemens: a 2.9 billion penalty, the board resigns, the company carries on.
Fourth, the amnesia. That is the decisive mechanism. Not forgetting out of stupidity — forgetting as a system function. The media turn to the next scandal. Politics carries on. The institutions reform themselves — on paper. And ten years later the same thing happens again: Cum-Ex is Flick by other means. Wirecard is Neue Heimat with fintech branding. Dieselgate is the logical consequence of an industry that has learned over decades that fraud pays.
Fraud and amnesia are not industrial accidents of the Megamachine. They are its operating fluids. What is lacking is not outrage — there is plenty of that. What is lacking is memory. Institutional memory. The knowledge that this fraud is the same as the last one — and that the structures that make it possible have remained the same.
XI. What Would It Take for the Pattern to Break?
Not tougher laws alone. They exist — and they are circumvented. Not more fines alone. They are priced in as operating costs. Not more moral appeals. Empirically they do not work — people in corrupt systems adapt, and so do people in clean systems.
The Rhineland sentence shows the only way: The opposite of corruption is not virtue. It is structure. Not: I will be virtuous. But: I know that under the right pressure or the right temptation I would find reasons — so I build structures that do not let this pressure or this temptation arise in the first place.
What would break the pattern is a change in incentives — so that fraud no longer pays and exposure does. Whistleblower protection that really protects. Personal liability of managers and politicians that is not cushioned by corporate insurance. Penalties that exceed the actual damage instead of falling below it. Statutes of limitation that correspond to the scale of the fraud.
And institutional memory: the obligation, with every new scandal, to ask systematically — where have we seen this before? What did we fail to do last time? Why did the structures we reformed back then not hold?
These are not utopian demands. They are the negative feedback loops that would keep a cybernetic system stable. What prevents them is the same Megamachine that makes the fraud possible — for the people in the Megamachine have an interest in the negative feedback in the system remaining weak.