We had an outstanding trip to Germany in late May!

Mark Fraley and Sue Giaimo of St. Catherine’s traveled to Frankfurt Germany to attend the Deutsche Bank Shareholder’s meeting and present Common Ground’s demands concerning Deutsche Bank’s involvement with the foreclosure crisis in Milwaukee.

On Wednesday, May 26th, they met with the German press and a member of the German Parliament in order to share our plight and gain international attention.  The next day, they attended the Shareholder’s meeting where they addressed the CEO, Board and Shareholder’s with two speeches about the poor state of homes Deutsche Bank holds in trust and our analysis, including a series of informational questions about Deutsche Bank’s relationship to these houses.   At this time, they also asked for a face-to-face meeting in Milwaukee with Deutsche Bank staff.

We are happy to report that Josef Ackerman (CEO of Deutsche Bank) responded.  He committed his legal staff for Deutsche Bank in New York to meet with Common Ground leaders in Milwaukee.  The time and date of this meeting is currently being worked out between both parties.

In addition, Common Ground received outstanding press for our effort, including:

A front page article in the “TAZ”, a Berlin newspaper
An article in the Financial Times Deutschland – the major German newspaper
 A 4-page article about Deutsche Bank’s involvement with foreclosed homes in Mind Der Spiegel – the major news magazine in German

We thank all of the leaders of Common Ground for their hard work and commitment to this campaign and we are excited to begin seeing some results!