Did Deutsche Bank Defraud the German Taxpayers?

In an earlier post I pointed out that Deutsche Bank is deeply involved in the US subprime mortgage crises, and as trustee for the mortgage investment conduits is now foreclosing on thousands of homes across America.  Now, it seems, that while the leading German banking institution is forcing Americans out of their homes it is also sticking the German taxpayers with the losses it sustained in portfolio of mortgage-backed securities.  Deutsche Bank has been selling these worthless securities to the German state-owned banks IKB, WestLB, SachsenLB etc… at a huge profit.   Now these state-owned institutions are insolvent, and the German taxpayer is once again forced to pay the price for the unbelievable mismanagement. 

It was actually a Focus article from last month which pointed out that the "experts" in the supervisory board (Aufsichtsrat) of the IKB watched passively as the bank collapsed from its poor management.  But perhaps they were not all so passive?  Board member Ulrich Hartmann sits on both the IKB and the Deutsche Bank supervisory boards:

"Hartmann sitzt übrigens auch im Aufsichtsrat der Deutschen Bank – einem
der Institute, die der IKB lange Jahre mit guten Gewinnen verbriefte
Ramschhypotheken verkauft hat."

This article caught the attention of the economist and blogger Albrecht Müller, whose NachDenkSeiten is always worth reading closely.  Müller asked the blogosphere to help in researching the connection between Deutsche Bank and the collapse of the state-owned Landesbanken. 

Müller and his fellow blogger Wolfgang Lieb see this situation as part of the pattern in Germany of "privatizing profits and socializing losses". 

Mit insgesamt wohl 12 Milliarden musste inzwischen der Steuerzahler
für die Fehlspekulationen dieser staatlichen Banken und der IKB gerade
stehen, während die privaten Banken bei der Rettung vor der Insolvenz
nur einen Bruchteil beitrugen.

Dass die Deutsche Bank jedenfalls besser und viel früher als viele
andere Banken und vor allem auch als die Landesbanken wusste, was sich
hinter den „Forderungsbesicherten Wertpapieren“ (ABS) verbarg, kann man
daran ablesen, dass die Deutsche Bank Trust Company in vorderster Front
als Treuhänder der Kreditverträge aktiv war.

(Now the taxpayers must come up with 12 billion (euros) to compensate for the bad gamble of the state banks and the IKB, while the private banks contribute a mere fraction to ensure their solvency. It is obvious that the Deutsche Bank knew far earlier and had better information on the true value of these asset-backed securities by virtue of its position as trustee for the mortgages.)

Finally Müller is getting some help in looking into this matter from an unexpected source: Bavarian CSU member of the Bundestag Peter Gauweiler has written a letter to German finance minister Peer Steinbrück demanding an investigation into the matter.