German financial markets, big companies coin money out of the pandemic The leadership of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been stricken with panic following revelations that two of its deputies in the German parliament ( Bundestag ) pocketed six-figure commissions after brokering deals with companies producing medical masks. Both men used their parliamentary mandate for personal gain. The revelations come just days before elections take place in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate on Sunday and six months before the federal election. Georg Nüßlein, Nikolas Löbel (Photo: Marta Ifrim / Dkckrls / CC BY-SA) Georg Nüßlein, a Christian Social Union (CSU) deputy, is alleged to have pocketed a “consulting fee” of 660,000 euros ($US790,000) for the purchase of coronavirus protection masks, while CDU MP Nikolas Löbel took home 250,000 euros for brokering a mask deal. Both finalised the deals through companies they ran. The conservative CDU and CSU form a block known as the Union and both parties, which currently govern Germany in a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now fear the wrath of the electorate.