At the NDR, too, there are now personnel consequences after criticism of the management staff. On Wednesday afternoon, the broadcaster Volker Thormählen, director of the Schleswig-Holstein state radio station, announced: “Norbert Lorentzen and Julia Stein asked me this afternoon to release them from their previous duties at the Schleswig-Holstein state radio station until further notice.” Thormählen complied with this request and thanked them for taking this step. “For the sake of good order, I would like to remind you that the presumption of innocence applies,” concludes the brief statement by NDR.
The two executives of the NDR in Schleswig-Holstein followed after complaints from employees in the state broadcasting center in Kiel that have become public. They criticized the fact that House 2020 executives were close to the then state government of the CDU, FDP and Greens. In essence, it was about reporting on the resignation of the CDU politician Hans-Joachim Grote. The state broadcasting council of Schleswig-Holstein recently initiated an examination. NDR employees demanded complete clarification in a letter to the state broadcasting director.
Julia Stein, now relieved of her duties, was head of the “Politics and Research” department in Kiel. Norbert Lorentzen has meanwhile become editor-in-chief of the NDR for Schleswig-Holstein, and at the time of the dispute he was head of the television program division. The posts of Lorentzen and Stein are temporarily taken over by Vice-Director and Editor-in-Chief Bettina Freitag and editor Andreas Schmidt from the “Politics and Research” department.