Schleswig-Holstein is the first German state to break with the American tech giant Microsoft. The ambitious plan to make public administration independent of American IT corporations was meant to be a symbol of digital sovereignty.
For Germany, digital sovereignty is part of a new policy introduced in the wake of Donald Trump's election in the United States. Across Germany, government agencies and the Bundeswehr, schools and public offices are switching en masse to Linux, Nextcloud, LibreOffice, and OX App Suite.
The decision to replace Microsoft software, including the widely used Outlook and Excel, with open-source solutions such as Open-Xchange (OX) for email, came from the state government of Daniel Günther (CDU).
"We want to be digitally sovereign, free from corporate dictates," declared Günther. Schleswig-Holstein was to become a pioneer in Europe, inspiring other countries to take similar steps.
For several weeks now, Schleswig-Holstein has been grappling with a wave of technical problems. Emails fail to reach recipients, accounts get mixed up, and programs crash at critical moments. The worst-hit are the state's courts and prosecutors' offices, where cases demand particularly precise communication. The introduction of electronic case files in criminal proceedings (E-Akte) was supposed to streamline operations, but instead it has deepened the chaos.
"We cannot even read important motions, which is leading to the loss of evidence in serious criminal cases,"
judges complained in an open letter to the state's digital affairs minister, Dirk Schrödter (CDU). In one case, old fax machines were reactivated to ensure continuity of correspondence. "We are proud to be able to rely on fax machines that were nearly thrown in the bin," staff joked. "This is a step backward by a decade," commented an anonymous civil servant.
The problems are not limited to outages. In the long term, acceptance of digital changes will decline among staff who are already overburdened with work. In a state where the administration employs thousands, the situation threatens to become a debacle.
The situation escalated to the point that on the evening of November 7, a secret meeting was held at the state chancellery in Kiel. Attendees included court presidents, the attorney general, and Dirk Schrödter himself, who is not only the digital affairs minister but also the head of the state chancellery. The meeting, initially kept under wraps, quickly became a major scandal. The atmosphere was tense. Judges and prosecutors accused Schrödter of inadequate planning.
"The switch to open source was not properly thought through, and the problems are being dumped on the shoulders of staff,"
the accusations rang out. Serious security risks were also raised, as highly sensitive data was being recklessly exposed to potential leaks. Schrödter, who initially defended himself with the mantra "everyone must accept change," buckled under pressure and promised improvements. In a personal letter to staff, the minister apologized: "I know that the past few weeks have been difficult. Not everything went smoothly, and that cost time and nerves. For that, I apologize." It was a rare gesture of humility in politics, but will it be enough? Günther, the state premier, personally intervened to avert a larger scandal.
