In late 1999, it was discovered that the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

Christian Democratic Union (Germany)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...

 political party had accepted illegal donations while under the control of Chancellor Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...

 in the 1990s. This issue had been ongoing since 1995, but little progress had been made until the rival SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 initiated its own investigation in October 1999.

On 5 November 1999, the Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

 prosecutor's office arrested former CDU treasurer Walther Leisler Kiep on charges of tax evasion

Tax evasion

Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...

 in connection with a large donation to the CDU by arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber

Karlheinz Schreiber

Friedrich Karlheinz Hermann Schreiber is a German and Canadian citizen, an industrialist, lobbyist, fundraiser, arms dealer and businessman...

 in 1991.

Although Kohl initially denied knowledge of the donation or Kiep's actions, he was forced to admit by 30 November that the CDU used a network of secret bank account

Bank account

A Bank account is a financial account recording the financial transactions between the customer and the bank and the resulting financial position of the customer with the bank .-Account types:...

s to conceal contributions, and in a December television interview

Interview

An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...

 Kohl admitted to have illegally accepted several million DM, though he did not name the donors. On 18 January, Kohl resigned his post as honorary chairman of the CDU.

After differing accounts of the whereabouts of Karlheinz Schreiber's DM 100,000 donation from current party chief Wolfgang Schäuble

Wolfgang Schäuble

Wolfgang Schäuble is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union , currently serving as the Federal Minister of Finance in the Second Cabinet Merkel....

 and treasurer Brigitte Baumeister, both were forced to step down. Schäuble's successor as party chief was Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel

Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...

, the current chancellor.

In the following investigations it was determined that the CDU possessed numerous "shadow accounts", including among other things a Swiss slush fund code-named "Norfolk". These accounts were not listed in the CDU's reports and were obviously used to mask illegal donations to the party. This practice became known as "System Kohl". Kohl, however, never proved that the funds had been used privately to bribe officials.

Since such "shadow accounts" violated the party spending laws, Bundestag

Bundestag

The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...

 President Wolfgang Thierse

Wolfgang Thierse

Wolfgang Thierse is a German politician .- Early years in the GDR :Thierse was born in Breslau . He is a Roman Catholic and grew up in East Germany. After his A-levels he first worked as a typesetter in Weimar...

 stopped disbursement of public campaign-finance money to the CDU.

The affair became even more explosive when it was revealed that Kiep had accepted a donation in excess of 1.3 million marks from Schreiber on 26 August 1991.

As consequences of this affair an investigative commission was established and the campaign finance

Campaign finance

Campaign finance refers to all funds that are raised and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in some sort of electoral contest. In modern democracies such funds are not necessarily devoted to election campaigns. Issue campaigns in referendums, party activities and party...

 laws tightened to ensure greater transparency. Even today, however, much is still unknown about the extent of this affair. A destruction of documents at the end of the Kohl government in 1998 is alleged to be responsible for this gap in the record (German Wikipedia: Bundeslöschtage).

Other German contributions scandals

The most well-known previous scandal was the 1982 Flick Affair

Flick Affair

The Flick Affair was a German political scandal of the early 1980s relating to political contributions by the Flick company, a major German conglomerate, to various political parties "for the cultivation of the political landscape"...

.

In the months after the 1999 CDU scandal, further illegal funding affairs were uncovered, involving among others the Hessian

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

 CDU and the Köln

KOLN

KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials...

 SPD

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

. The North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

n FDP's chairman, Jürgen Möllemann

Jürgen Möllemann

Jürgen Wilhelm Möllemann was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party. He served as Minister of State at the Foreign Office , as Federal Minister of Education and Research , as Federal Minister of Economics and as Vice Chancellor of Germany in the government of Chancellor Helmut...

, also was implicated.

Hessian CDU Scandal
After the federal CDU scandal came to light, the state CDU party of Hesse

Hesse

Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

's involvement became known. Among other things, the former Minister of the Interior Manfred Kanther

Manfred Kanther

Manfred Kanther is a German conservative politician and was Minister of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1993 to 1998. He has been a member of the CDU .- Life and education :...

 and state treasurer Casimir Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein had hidden further illegal donations as the inheritance of deceased Jews. The opposition in the Hessian state government claimed that these funds were used in particular for the financing of Roland Koch

Roland Koch

Roland Koch is a German jurist and former conservative politician. He was Minister-President of Hesse from April 7, 1999, immediately becoming President of the Bundesrat, completing the term begun by his predecessor as Minister President, Hans Eichel, until his resignation on August 31, 2010...

's electoral campaign (CDU Prime Minister of Hesse), and tried to have the election (which he won) voided; this attempt failed, however.

External links

• Final Report of the Bundestag Investigation Committee on "Party Donations", 11 June 2002 (in German)
• "German sleaze: The story so far" - BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
   News Report, 17 February 2000
• Gerd Langguth, "The scandal that helped Merkel become chancellor", Spiegel Online International, 8 July 2009