Lufthansa has issued a multimillion-dollar bill to the Scholz government for Merkel's debts

The German airline Lufthansa has billed the federal government several million euros for the evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul in the summer of 2021. This is reported by SPIEGEL magazine with reference to confidential documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We are talking about 31 special flights organized by Lufthansa and another airline to evacuate people who had to be taken to a safe place after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan*. Then Lufthansa received about 5 million euros, "payable immediately upon receipt of the invoice." The then Foreign Minister of Germany, Heiko Maas (SPD), and the head of Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, quickly and personally agreed on a deal. According to the documents, Spohr offered a completely unprepared government short-term flights to provide assistance.

"The Foreign Ministry reported that the total cost of evacuation in August 2021 amounted to about 19.9 million euros. According to SPIEGEL, about half of them accounted for Bundeswehr flights directly from Kabul, the other half — on 17 charter flights of Lufthansa, and the rest — on flights of the airline "Uzbekistan Airways" through an improvised hub in Tashkent. The documents show that the German Embassy paid at least 1.9 million euros in cash to the Uzbek state airline. Expensive rescue flights were also necessary because the government led by Angela Merkel (CDU) did not prepare properly for the return of the Taliban*. Thus, one special flight cost a six—figure sum," the magazine writes.

Lufthansa announced that "special precautions" must be taken for special flights.

*Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation