In the CTON Lublin section hall, “a man dressed in a vest with the DB logo with a German accent” appeared and “asked about the possibility of taking photos of the repair hall and photos of the locomotives”. “He was driving a VW Passat with German registration plates”. This is how the deputy head of the maintenance section in Lublin described the situation in detail in his memo. The memo was addressed to the director of the Eastern PKP Cargo Plant, and was later made available to a journalist from Telewizja Republika.
It was quickly picked up by right-wing media and prominent politicians, including former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki“The previous board probably invited this guy too,” Morawiecki wrote on X and Facebook, sharing the note.
Michał Woś, a member of parliament for Sovereign Poland and former secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice, went even further in his conclusions. “It is outrageous when 'the corpse has not yet cooled down' and they are already tearing up the assets. Tusk has gone further in PKP Cargo. They are only just finishing off the company, and as Michał Jelonek from TV Republika has established, Deutsche Bahn is already taking inventory of the assets. Who invited them? The mechanism is like in LOT under the first Tusk” – wrote on X, based on the note.
PKP Cargo is indeed in serious financial trouble and has announced a restructuring of the company. Group layoffs have already been announced, covering about 4 thousand employees. But the restructuring does not mean a sale – assure the company's management.
Will Germany Take Over PKP Cargo? Deutsche Bahn Comments: “This Is Nonsense”
The Polish Editorial Office of Deutsche Welle asked Deutsche Bahn (DB) in Berlin for comment. Are they planning to take over PKP Cargo or its assets? And has it sent a representative to Lublin to take photos of the locomotives? The spokesperson is surprised. Finally, he sends a response: “DB Cargo is focusing on its own transformation. It is about the company's competitiveness. Simpler structures should ensure profitability. Acquisitions of companies are not on our agenda.”
We ask about sending an employee to take photos of the Polish company's locomotives. “That's nonsense. As a company dealing with rail freight transport, we know very well what the equipment looks like in the rail industry in Europe,” replies the DB spokesman.
Unofficially, we have learned that DB does not want to comment on this matter further because the story is so absurd that taking it seriously can only fuel further fakes.
Deutsche Bahn wants to survive the economic crisis
DB Cargo is the largest freight carrier in the European Union. It has about 9,000 locomotives and over 80,000 freight wagons and numerous subsidiaries, also in Poland. DB Cargo Polska has – like PKP Cargo and many other European transport companies – financial problems.
The economic crisis and then explosion The war in Ukraine has reduced rail freight volumes across Europe. Companies are trying to survive and limit losses, rather than buying other companies with financial problems.
Who is “the man in the vest”?
And where does the story about the man in the Deutsche Bahn waistcoat come from? – we ask a DB employee who wishes to remain anonymous. – DB managers don't wear waistcoats, they wear suits – our interlocutor laughs. – And they, not mechanics or conductors, are the ones who handle mergers and contracts. All that's missing is a wig and it would be a bad pastiche of a Bond film. It's shocking that famous politicians are involved – he says.
So did someone come up with such a story? – Not necessarily. He just – maybe even deliberately – took advantage of the situation. He added something, suggested something. After all, it's not only DB technical employees who wear vests with the DB logo – he replies.
Photographic Railway Safari
We check on popular German sales platforms whether it is possible to buy a DB vest. We easily find such vests from different years and from different groups of employees – including on-board staff, conductors, technical workers – in price from a dozen or so euros. This is a popular item among German railway enthusiasts – alongside model trains, mugs, maps, old train tickets and other gadgets.
One of the enthusiasts of such memorabilia is 50-year-old Uwe from Bonn. He was infected with the passion for railways by his father as a child. He himself focuses on models, including models of infrastructure, but among his friends he has some who devote their holidays to “railway photographic safaris”, not only in Germany and Europe, but also all over the world. They go to railway shows and festivals, for example to the Polish Wolsztyn, and organize trips on their own.
Uwe doesn't laugh when we tell him the story about the German with the camera. “Of course some fan could have wanted to take pictures for his collection, from the East,” he shrugs. “What's so strange about that?” he asks. He smiles only when we tell him what outrage this event has caused among Polish politicians and some Polish media. “Don't exaggerate. When people camp out by the airport and take pictures of planes taking off, is there such a scandal?” he comments.
Mateusz Morawiecki spoke about the alleged liquidation of PKP Cargo. The company comments
Unlike DB, which prefers to ignore the matter, the Polish PKP Cargo reacted strongly. “The information disseminated by the Director of the Eastern Plant of the Company in Lublin and reproduced by selected media, about the visit of a representative of Deutsche Bahn allegedly for the purpose of 'taking stock' of the Company's assets that can be taken over, is untrue,” the company stated. “We inform that the dissemination of untrue and harmful information for the PKP CARGO SA Company about its alleged liquidation or attempts to take over its assets by foreign capital will be met with a firm reaction from the PKP CARGO SA legal team,” we read.
In the meantime, they leaked new details that could be important for explaining the fake. It turned out that the director of the Eastern Plant of the Company, who passed the note to Telewizja Republika, was one of the company's management members slated for dismissal.
Mateusz Morawiecki posted a video on August 8 on Xwhich suggests that the current “coalition of losers is seeking to liquidate the Polish strategic company PKP Cargo”. The video refers to the visit of the “man in the vest”.
The PKP Cargo management board responded to the posts of the former Polish Prime Minister. “The account Premiere Mateusz Morawiecki on the X platform published false information regarding plans to liquidate or sell PKP CARGO SA. Inconsistent with the truth, the blame for the catastrophic situation of the Company is attributed to the current government, while it is the result of 8 years of PiS rule,” reads the statement.
The article comes from the website German Welle