Investigators have searched the Berlin flat of Steffen Krach, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for governing mayor, together with the party’s state headquarters in the Wedding district and premises in Hanover.
The Hanover public prosecutor is treating him as a suspect in a bribery inquiry linked to his previous job running the Hanover region, home to 1.1 million people.
Krach, who was president of the region from late 2021 until early 2026, is accused of possibly taking a donation from a healthcare provider in return for backing that provider in a bidding process.
As regional president, he chaired the supervisory board of the municipal hospital chain, which owns 10 clinics.
The regional daily Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, which first reported the case, said the inquiry may centre on the tender to sell a former hospital site in Lehrte, east of Hanover.
German newspaper Tagesspiegel, citing security sources, said it was not yet clear whether any money was meant for him personally or for the SPD in the region.
Krach had publicly backed the bidder that ultimately lost the tender, Tagesspiegel reported. The paper said investigators do not rule out that the alleged donation came from that provider, whose premises were already searched in May 2026 over a possible corruption offence.
Krach has been on unpaid leave to concentrate on the election campaign in Berlin.
The Hanover regional administration confirmed to news agency dpa that Krach’s former offices were among the premises searched. The prosecutor’s office had been asked for comment by German media but only confirmed the investigation and searches, without going into detail.
The Berlin SPD has rejected the allegation. “As SPD Berlin and in the name of our state chairman and lead candidate Steffen Krach we reject the insinuations in the strongest terms,” a spokesman said.
“We are of course co-operating fully with the authorities in order to clear up these baseless claims.”
No charges have been brought. A search is not a finding of guilt.
The September 9 raid comes 11 days before Berliners vote for a new House of Representatives, the city-state’s parliament, on September 20.
Krach took the SPD ticket in November 2025; days later, the party’s previous state leaders stood down after losing internal elections.
An INSA poll published on September 4 put the SPD on 15 per cent, level with the Greens and behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on 20 per cent, the Left party on 19 and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 18.
The contest is the city’s third parliamentary election in five years, after the 2021 vote was annulled over polling-day failures and rerun in February 2023.
Kai Wegner, the CDU governing mayor, is not standing again: He withdrew on July 10 after criticism of his communication during a major power cut in the city’s southwest in January, and finance senator Stefan Evers is running in his place.
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) has come under intense criticism after it emerged that he was playing tennis during a major power outage, despite publicly claiming he had been working “day and night” in the office to manage the crisis. https://t.co/gtBuTUgmC6
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 8, 2026
