Hunzinger AG

German political communication company founded by Moritz Hunzinger.

In July 2002, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder sacked the then German Minister for Defence, Rudolf Scharping, after he said in an interview with the newspaper Bild that he had received payments totalling 140,000 marks ($72,000) from public relations adviser Moritz Hunzinger.

Scharping said that the payment was for three lectures before he became a Minister and and his future memoirs. German Ministers are not allowed to receive any pay apart from their ministerial salaries.

According to a 2002 article in Die Welt, on behalf of Microsoft Hunzinger lobbied against the adoption of Linux software in the Bundestag. Microsoft dropped Hunzinger AG in favour of ECC.

Clients
A financial report for the first half of 1999 listed new clients for Hunzinger as including:


 * Maxdata AG,
 * Gontard & MetallBank AG
 * Prodacta AG,
 * Gigabell AG,
 * Wintershall AG,
 * CSC Ploenzke AG,
 * Microsoft GmbH,
 * Berliner Wasserbetriebe,
 * Lehman Brothers,
 * AOL Bertelsmann Online GmbH & Co. KG,
 * Messe Frankfurt GmbH,
 * Curanum AG
 * Messer Griesheim GmbH.

Pre-existing clients at the time included Deutsche Telekom AG

Links

 * Hunzinger
 * BBC, "German defence minister sacked, July 18, 2002.
 * Linuxtoday: Von Martin Lutz and Arne Delfs, How Hunzinger Lobbied the Bundestag against Linux,"Die Welt", July 26, 2002.[Original in German and available only to subscribers].