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Richard Lutz, head of Deutsche Bahn, is leaving the struggling company early. His successor is still open.(archive image)
Keystone
The head of Deutsche Bahn, Richard Lutz, has to leave early. The 61-year-old will only lead the company until a successor has been found, as Deutsche Presse-Agentur learned on Thursday.
Lutz's contract actually runs until 2027 and the head of Deutsche Bahn has been under fire for months - the economic and operational crisis in which the company has been mired for years is too great.
Under Lutz's leadership, Deutsche Bahn slid from one negative headline to the next, with political decision-makers repeatedly calling for the Group to be broken up. Most recently, the dilapidated and broken infrastructure caused major problems. Punctuality on long-distance services plummeted from 78.5 percent in 2017 to 62.5 percent last year.
Significant improvements are not yet in sight. Deutsche Bahn is also in financial difficulties - the federally owned company has been in the red for years. In its coalition agreement, the new German government announced a reorganization of the Supervisory Board and the Deutsche Bahn Executive Board "with the aim of reflecting more expertise and streamlining". This reorganization has obviously now begun.
Lutz has headed the federally owned group since the beginning of 2017. Before that, he was DB's Chief Financial Officer from 2010 to 2017. The 61-year-old from the Palatinate region of Germany has worked for the Group since 1994 and knows the company and the industry better than many others. But that has no longer helped him.
Lutz is considered a disciplined worker and a good chess player. His working days usually start at 4.00 a.m. and last until late in the evening. He rarely took weekends off either. Until the end, he emphasized his passion for the job and his connection to the company. As long as he was allowed to work, he was always happy to do so.
In order to fundamentally tackle the problems, Lutz launched a restructuring concept in 2024 to improve the infrastructure, rail operations and profitability of the railroad over three years. Among other things, thousands of jobs are to be cut. Lutz can now only observe the end of the program in 2027 from the outside.
The infrastructure is to be made fit again with around 40 general refurbishments on particularly important routes. Construction is currently underway on the Hamburg-Berlin line.
German Transport Minister Schnieder has announced a strategy for DB's future in late summer. The CDU politician did not actually want to deal with personnel issues until then.
It is still unclear who will succeed Lutz. Will Schnieder send a politician to the Bahntower at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin? Or will the successor be found within the ranks of the Group? Jörg Kukies, who was briefly Finance Minister, and Evelyn Palla, Head of DB Regio, have been mooted as candidates.
14.08.2025, 16:35
