Berlin Mayor's Communication During Blackout Under Fire

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner is once again under scrutiny for his handling of communications during a widespread power outage that affected the city's southwest earlier this year.

Contrary to his initial accounts, reports indicate that Wegner, a member of the CDU party, did not make any official phone calls regarding the January 3rd blackout until after 12:45 p.m. that day. The Tagesspiegel newspaper, citing information from the Senate Chancellery, reported that communication with his staff occurred via text messages before that time. The Senate Chancellery declined to respond to inquiries from the German Press Agency (dpa) on the matter.

“

Yes, I made communication errors and I want to apologize for them to all Berliners.

Wegner had previously stated in a Welt-TV interview on January 7th, the final day of the outage, that he began making calls at 8:08 a.m., speaking with crisis teams and the power grid operator. He also faced criticism during the multi-day blackout for initially failing to disclose playing a nearly hour-long tennis match on the first day.

He publicly apologized for "communication errors" on March 24th, acknowledging that he had communicated with his staff via text messages that morning. However, the exact details of his contacts with various authorities during the crisis remain unclear. The power outage, which impacted around 45,000 households and approximately 100,000 people, was caused by an arson attack on a cable bridge.

“

I did indeed begin making phone calls at 8:08 a.m. I spoke with the crisis teams, with the power grid.