Overview
- Germany’s Federal Court of Auditors told the parliamentary enquiry that the Health Ministry bought about 5.8 billion masks for €5.9 billion in spring 2020, with roughly 3.4 billion later destroyed and around €510 million in storage costs.
- Special investigator Margaretha Sudhof said the ministry moved into large‑scale procurement against the advice of its specialist departments and noted that key pandemic documentation sits with a private actor rather than in the ministry.
- Jens Spahn maintained there was no blueprint for the crisis and said the priority was to prevent hospital overload, while conceding he should have made the breadth of expert consultation more visible.
- Opposition MPs criticized contracts as poorly drafted and legally flawed and argued the ministry bypassed federal procurement agencies and expanded orders to many times the crisis staff’s plan, with the logistics award to Fiege also drawing scrutiny in reports.
- Legal fallout persists, including a 2024 ruling by the Higher Regional Court in Cologne ordering €86 million plus interest to a supplier, with the case now before the Federal Court of Justice.