Overview
- Kai Wegner acknowledged playing tennis from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the blackout’s first day, saying he remained reachable by phone and returned to work immediately.
- The admission contradicts his earlier claim that he spent the entire day coordinating by phone from his home office, and he later said he should have disclosed the break sooner.
- Opposition figures escalated criticism, with AfD’s Kristin Brinker and FDP vice chair Wolfgang Kubicki calling for Wegner to resign, while Greens candidate Werner Graf and SPD’s Steffen Krach condemned his conduct.
- A Senate spokeswoman confirmed that Education Senator Katharina Günter-Wünsch, Wegner’s partner, also played tennis with him during the crisis.
- Authorities attribute the multi-day outage to a suspected left-wing extremist arson attack on a cable bridge, which forced school and daycare closures and was reportedly linked to at least one death.