
Sklarek scandal

The Sklarek scandal was a political scandal which started in 1927 in Weimar Germany. It primarily involved three brothers, Leo, Max and Willy Sklarek who were arrested for fraud in the autumn of that year coming to trial on 13 October 1931. As with the previous Barmat scandal, the brothers were Jewish, a fact which was likewise exploited by propagandists of the emergent Nazi Party, who used the scandal to attack Jewish people in general, democracy and the Weimar state.
In 1926, the Sklarek brothers bought the stock of the clothing distribution company, with which the municipality of Berlin dressed its agents during the First World War. This relationship was continued in the postwar years. However, the brothers defrauded the Berlin municipality by issuing a series of false invoices for goods never delivered. When the fraud was discovered, the damages were estimated at over 10 million marks. The brothers bribed or attempted to bribe a large number of Weimer officials to cover up the scandal. The corruption was so widespread that the court proceedings ran to 2300 pages.