According to the broadcaster, an examination by the anti-corruption officer of the NDR exonerates the director of the state broadcasting house in Hamburg, Sabine Rossbach. “As a result, no corruption facts were found in relation to the allegations made through the actions or omissions of director Sabine Rossbach,” said the NDR. The allegations of the past few weeks have thus turned out to be false, it is said.
The background was allegations of nepotism in the Hamburg broadcasting center and the question of whether the director could have used her office to favor relatives, which could also have affected the program. Rossbach and the broadcaster had rejected this. But employees of the NDR in Hamburg had informed the director Joachim Knuth in a letter that they “could no longer imagine a trusting cooperation with the broadcaster boss”.
At the beginning of September, the NDR announced that that Rossbach is putting their work on hold for the time being. This decision stands, Rossbach will make her office available in April 2023. “The independent report by the anti-corruption officer relieves me and the affected colleagues at the Hamburg state radio station at the same time,” explained Rossbach, but a lot of mutual trust had been lost in recent weeks. Joachim Knuth said he was “relieved that the serious suspicions were not confirmed”. Sabine Rossbach is an outstanding journalist who has dedicated her entire professional life to the NDR and, according to Knuth, he regrets that this achievement was overshadowed by the allegations. The results of an internal journalistic review of the NDR should be available by the end of the week, two investigative journalists from the broadcaster have been commissioned to do so. The NDR had taken a similar approach to allegations in the broadcasting center in Kiel.