About This Investigation

This investigation is conducted by an affected tenant. The operator lives in an asbestos-contaminated degewo apartment and has experienced firsthand how the company handles asbestos cases. This is disclosed openly — it is stated in the legal notice and in the footer of every page.

Personal experience is the reason this investigation exists, not a substitute for evidence. Every factual claim on this website is supported by verifiable primary sources. Where interpretation is involved, it is marked as such.

This research relies primarily on official primary sources that are publicly accessible and independently verifiable:

Parliamentary records: Written questions, official publications, and plenary minutes from the Berlin State Parliament (Abgeordnetenhaus), accessible through the official parliamentary documentation system and this site’s parliamentary archive (German).

Court records: Judgments, rulings, and procedural documents from civil and criminal proceedings, documented in the criminal case analysis and the civil case study.

Investigation files: Documents from prosecutorial investigation proceedings, referenced with specific page numbers (Bl.) from the case file.

Commercial register: Publicly accessible entries identifying managing directors and board members of degewo AG.

Press reports: Articles from German media including taz, Tagesspiegel, and BZ Berlin. These serve as supplementary sources, not as sole evidence for factual claims.

Source citations appear directly alongside the relevant text throughout this site.

The positions of degewo and other parties involved are reflected throughout this investigation: their public statements are examined in the fact check, court proceedings are documented with arguments from both sides, and the Schork vs. Zirngast case study presents both parties’ positions.

The operator has personally contacted the individuals named on this website. No response was received. degewo has blocked the operator’s email addresses, preventing further direct communication. Information about the role of specific actors was also passed to journalists at ARD (German public broadcasting) — to the operator’s knowledge, no follow-up investigation by the editorial team took place.

The invitation stands: all individuals and organizations mentioned on this website are welcome to respond at any time via the contact page. Any statements received will be documented and incorporated into the investigation.

If you have internal knowledge about asbestos handling in Berlin housing companies — as an employee, contractor, inspector, or in any other capacity — you can reach out confidentially.

Every documented piece of information — from affected tenants, insiders, or public sources — helps shed light on how asbestos contamination is systematically handled in Berlin’s state-owned housing.