SPD politician Sebastian Fiedler sharply criticizes Deutsche Bahn over inadequate security measures and now sees reports about his family as an act of revenge. The 'Bild' coverage refers to an incident in June 2025 where Fiedler's partner Britta Zur acted as DB security chief. Party colleagues support Fiedler and question the timing of the revelations.
Sebastian Fiedler, SPD interior politician and chief detective, recently criticized Deutsche Bahn. Following the violent death of train attendant Serkan C., he accused the new board of failing to do enough against rising attacks on rail staff. In 'Bild', he criticized the seven-million-euro advertising campaign featuring Anke Engelke, stating: “For this money, at least 100 additional security personnel could have been paid for a year.”
Now Fiedler himself has become the target of 'Bild' reports. He views this as revenge by Deutsche Bahn and wrote on LinkedIn: “For MY (!) criticism of Deutsche Bahn AG, my partner is being covered with factually incorrect and defamatory reporting.” The reports concern an incident in June 2025. Fiedler and his partner Britta Zur, former police chief of Gelsenkirchen and until the end of October 2025 managing director of DB Security, were traveling with two children from Sylt back to North Rhine-Westphalia. The Intercity stopped in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein, due to insufficient emergency water on board. Zur contacted DB Security, and the family transferred to a regional train to Itzehoe. A DB minibus was waiting there to take them to a Hamburg S-Bahn station, from which they reached the main station and an ICE train westward.
'Bild' headlined: “300 passengers stranded! Only the rail security chief sneaks away in a company car – and loses her job.” A follow-up article asked: “This SPD politician rode with the rail manager in the car. Is the Bundestag member mixing private and professional?” Zur emphasized on LinkedIn that no misconduct was found and that the ride in the minibus violated no regulations. Her consensual separation from the company is unrelated. She and Fiedler suspect the story was leaked after Fiedler's criticism.
It remains unclear whether Fiedler should have mentioned Zur's role in his criticism. He told 'Bild': “During my partner's work, there were no political issues that could have led to conflicts of interest.” SPD colleagues, including parliamentary manager Dirk Wiese, support him. Wiese told RND: “Regarding the now known allegations against my colleague Sebastian Fiedler, the Deutsche Bahn executive level must be asked why these are emerging exactly now in connection with our faction's justified criticism of the expensive spending on the Anke Engelke ad spot. This thin-skinnedness is disconcerting. It seems as if a respected expert colleague is being publicly discredited. The relationship between Sebastian Fiedler and Britta Zur has long been known. Since she no longer works at Deutsche Bahn, there is no basis for any conflicts of interest.”
Faction members suspect that the board under DB CEO Palla aims to prevent the security division from being spun off from the company and transferred to the Federal Police – a demand that SPD interior politicians like Fiedler are making ahead of the safety summit on Friday.
