Berlin district parliamentary group leader resigns mandate and leaves the Greens

After the scandal surrounding allegedly fabricated harassment allegations against Bundestag member Stefan Gelbhaar, the Berlin Greens are having their first personnel consequences. The chairwoman of the Green parliamentary group in the district council assembly (BVV) in Mitte, Shirin Kreße, resigned from her mandate on Saturday and resigned from the party.

In an email to the Mitte district board and the head of the BVV on Saturday afternoon, she explained that she would be giving up the mandate as soon as possible, but did not give any reasons for this. Several sources from the party at federal, state and district levels confirmed this to the Tagesspiegel.

In addition, Kreße declared that she was leaving the party. Nina Stahr, co-state leader of the Berlin Greens, confirmed this late in the evening. This will prevent her from being expelled from the party. Because on Saturday the leadership of the federal party had already announced that it would carry out a party exclusion process “as soon as the person (…) becomes known to us”.

Kreß played an active role in the Gelbhaar case from the beginning

“The suspicion that a false statement containing serious allegations was made to the press against another party member is serious,” said the federal Green Party chairmen Franziska Brantner and Felix Banaszak.

According to Tagesspiegel research, Kreße is said to have submitted an affidavit under a false identity in which Gelbhaar was accused of sexual harassment. Kreße himself did not respond to calls or written inquiries from the Tagesspiegel on Saturday. She is well connected in the state party, especially in the left wing, is the spokeswoman for the state working group (LAG) on feminism and has so far been an employee of a Green politician in the House of Representatives – but not since Saturday.

The 27-year-old had demonstrably played an active role in the Yellow Hair affair from the beginning. Shortly before the party conference of the Berlin Greens in mid-December determined the state list for the federal election, Kreße made the harassment allegations at a meeting of the party left, according to participants.

After that, all the dams broke in the Gelbhaar case – despite the presumption of innocence. The state executive board asked Gelbhaar to renounce his candidacy for the list. The direct candidacy was also questioned, even though Gelbhaar had already been elected a month earlier with 98 percent. Eventually this was also called into question, and in a new election, MP Julia Schneider was chosen as the direct candidate.

The RBB was deceived

But for a long time, Gelbhaar didn’t know exactly what it was about. The federal party’s ombudsman office received several complaints. After all, it is an ombudsman’s office “against sexualized violence,” as Kreuzberg’s Werner Graf, parliamentary group leader in the House of Representatives, was quoted by the taz. The tone was set, but Yellowhair couldn’t defend herself.

The RBB also contributed to the suspicion that Gelbhaar had sexually harassed women. On Friday, however, the broadcaster had to admit that it had apparently been deceived. A Green district politician invented the allegations of sexual harassment against Gelbhaar and pretended to have a different identity. The broadcaster deleted all posts about it.

An “Anne K.” had submitted an affidavit to the RBB, but the broadcaster had apparently not checked it sufficiently. Spicy: The RBB legal department had approved all reports on the allegations.

On Monday, the Tagesspiegel questioned the broadcaster about dubious points in the reports. According to the official population register, “Anne K.” does not even exist in Berlin. In addition, the affidavit did not contain a date of birth. Four days after the previously unanswered request, the station itself went public.

The RBB itself now assumes that the district politician had forged the affidavit. In phone calls, “Anne K.” described Gelbhaar’s alleged assault. The editorial team did not meet the woman in person, but spread the accusation that Gelbhaar had forced her to kiss her.

Two other serious allegations were based on anonymous emails that were available to the RBB and apparently also to the ombudsman’s office. These emails are also said to come from Kreße. According to RBB, she denies having made up the allegations. However, she provided no evidence of the existence of “Anne K.”

At the 2023 federal party conference, she railed against Adenauer

The RBB assumes that the three main allegations could be “fictitious”. Essential allegations are now invalid, other allegations have a significantly “lower case,” explains the RBB.

Kreße became a district representative for the first time in the 2021 election, she was in fifth place on the district list and was immediately promoted to the parliamentary group executive board. She had her power base with the “Green Youth” party juniors, became parliamentary group leader and has been confirmed in office every year since. She was also the parliamentary group spokesperson for health and queer politics.

The “Green Youth” decorated themselves with cress and described it with the words: “Her intersectional, feminist perspective is particularly important to her in order to create more representativeness for citizens and to stand up for people with all experiences of discrimination.”

Kreße, born in 1997, became known throughout Germany at the federal party conference of the Greens in Karlsruhe in November 2023. She had requested that a quote from the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer (CDU), on the European peace order be deleted from the election program. Kreße found that Adenauer was too sexist even for CDU politicians in his time.