CDU donations scandal

File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F082405-0010, Bremen, CDU-Bundesparteitag, Kiep.jpg

Walther Leisler Kiep, 1989

File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F074398-0021 Kohl (cropped).jpg

Helmut Kohl, 1987

The CDU donations scandal was a political scandal resulting from the illegal forms of party financing used by the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) during the 1990s. These included accepting hidden donations, the non-disclosure of cash donations, the maintenance of secret bank accounts, and illegal wire transfers to and from foreign banks.

The scandal was uncovered in late 1999 and remained the dominant subject of political discussion and news coverage in Germany for several months. The Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache selected the term Schwarzgeldaffäre (literally, "black money affair" i.e. "illegal earnings scandal") as German Word of the Year 2000. Opinion polls conducted by the Allensbach Institute suggest that in November 1999 (before the scandal became known), the CDU was expected to receive around 45 percent of the popular vote in a hypothetical German federal election. By February 2000, this value had plummeted down to 31 percent.<ref>German opinion polls from 1998 to 2002 on the federal level conducted by the Allensbach Institute, collected by wahlrecht.de</ref>

As a consequence, two of the leading CDU figures of the 1980s and 1990s, Helmut Kohl and Wolfgang Schäuble lost their political influence, with Angela Merkel and Roland Koch emerging as the most powerful German conservative politicians.

Timeline

1999

Date	Event
Template:Nowrap	A court in Augsburg filed an arrest warrant for Walther Leisler Kiep (who had served as CDU treasurer from 1972 to 1992) over accusations of tax evasion,<ref name="BBC1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> following an investigation into business deals involving Karlheinz Schreiber, a German arms dealer who resides in Canada.<ref name="SOI">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="BR">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kiep was accused of having received DM 1 million in cash from Schreiber without proper legal disclosure. Schreiber was also wanted by German authorities over unrelated charges, but his dual Canadian citizenship prevented his extradition.
5 November	Kiep surrendered to the authorities and admitted that he had indeed accepted the money from Schreiber on 26 August 1991. The delivery of the money was at a highway service area in Switzerland and Horst Weyrauch, a financial advisor of the CDU, was there.<ref name="SOI" /><ref name="BR" /><ref name="sued">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kiep indicated that the money had been booked as a donation for the CDU. Subsequently, he was released on a bail of DM 500,000.<ref name="SO1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
6 November	Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of Germany (1982-1998) and CDU chairman (1973-1998) stated that he had no knowledge of any CDU earnings that violated the German party financing system.<ref name="BBC1" /><ref name="DT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
8 November	Weyrauch stated that the DM 1 million from Schreiber had been placed in an escrow account. Angela Merkel, then the CDU secretary general, demanded a "swift and comprehensive investigation" into the unfolding scandal.<ref name="SO1" />
Template:Nowrap	Schreiber claimed that they had only served as intermediaries in the money transfer, which indeed had been intended as a hidden party financing.<ref name="DT" /> Hints that the money had originated as a provisional payment from the government of Saudi Arabia following the delivery of German-made tanks (a deal which was believed to have been realized by Schreiber on behalf of CDU) were rejected by Helmut Kohl.
23 November	In a TV interview, Kiep disagreed with Kohl's statement from 6 November and claimed that the CDU leadership had been informed about the money transfer.<ref name="SO1" />
26 November	Heiner Geißler, who had served as CDU secretary general from 1977 to 1989 (when he lost this post because of a disagreement with Kohl), confirmed the existence of covert party bank accounts.<ref name="sued" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
28 November	CDU party chairman Wolfgang Schäuble, a close ally of Helmut Kohl, gave a press statement assuring the public that there would be a "thorough investigation" into the scandal. He confirmed the existence of escrow accounts managed by Weyrauch on behalf of the CDU, but rejected the term "covert bank accounts".<ref name="SO1" />
29 November	German news magazine Der Spiegel published an investigative story uncovering that the revenue of the regional CDU branch in Hesse had seen a dramatic increase between 1989 and 1991, culminating in an amount of several million DM,<ref name="SO2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> which the party had attributed to anonymous donations.<ref name="BR" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
30 November	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> apologizing for the lack of transparency and possible violation of regulations imposed on German parties.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2 December	The Bundestag voted for the installation of a special investigation committee into the scandal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
16 December	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> He refused to name the donors, claiming that he was bound to his word of honor to keep the donations confidential.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ntv">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
22 December	The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published an op-ed by Angela Merkel, in which she calls for her party to sever the ties with Helmut Kohl.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> Since 1990, Merkel had been regarded as a protégé of Kohl, who had sponsored her political career. Her FAZ article is widely regarded as an act of emancipation from Kohl, which later allowed her to become the dominant figure in the CDU, a development culminating in her being elected chancellor in 2005.
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2000

Date	Event
3 January	State prosecutors in Bonn initiated a criminal investigation against Helmut Kohl, suspecting him of embezzlement to the detriment of the CDU.<ref name="BBC2" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Nowrap	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, his account of the exact circumstances was contradicted by the CDU's then-treasurer, Brigitte Baumeister.<ref name="ntv" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
14 January	Manfred Kanther, who had served as chairman of the CDU regional branch in Hesse from 1991 to 1998, confirmed the existence of covert bank accounts used by the party since 1983.<ref name="SO2" /> By 2000, these accounts contained assets worth DM 17 million.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> Roland Koch, who had succeeded Kanther as chairman, promised to investigate the matter "as brutal as possible."
17 January	State prosecutors in Wiesbaden initiated a criminal investigation against leading figures of the CDU in Hesse (Kanther, Weyrauch and others), concerning their roles in the scandal.<ref name="DT" />
18 January	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ntv1"/>
27 January	Roland Koch revealed an act of money laundering: In 1983, DM 18 million had been transferred from covert CDU bank accounts in Hesse to an anonymous account in Switzerland and subsequently channelled back.<ref name="BR" />
30 January	Horst Weyrauch confirmed the result of Koch's investigation, stating a total amount of DM 20.8 million. Weyrauch revealed that he had envisioned this money transfer plan as a means of circumventing the German party financing law.<ref name="SO2" />
Template:Nowrap	Wolfgang Thierse, the President of the Bundestag, whom German parties are obliged to give account of their financial situation, fined the CDU a record sum of DM 41 million due to faulty reports and party financing violations, a decision which is appealed by the CDU.<ref name="ntv1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
16 February	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
10 April	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
4 June	Following a private fundraising call, Helmut Kohl transferred more than DM 8 million to the CDU as a compensation for damages caused by the scandal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
October	It was revealed that the money Karlheinz Schreiber had handed over to Walter Leisler Kiep in 1991 (which triggered the whole scandal) had indeed originated in a slush fund established by Thyssen AG in connection with a tank export deal with Saudi Arabia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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Later events

Date	Event
Template:Nowrap	An administrative court in Berlin overturned the decision by Bundestag President Thierse to punish the CDU with a DM 41 million fine. In turn, Thierse appealed this verdict.<ref name="ntv1" />
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16 September 2004	The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, the highest court in the country, ruled that the fine imposed by Wolfgang Thierse on the CDU in 2000 had indeed been legal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Nowrap	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
3 August 2009	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Augsburg court, which had initiated the investigation on 4 November 1999, later sentenced him to eight years in prison due to tax evasion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
September 2011	In a review trial at the Federal Court of Justice of Germany, the verdict against Schreiber was lifted. Due to his deteriorating health, he was released from prison in March 2012 and allowed to move to Kaufering, where he has been held under house arrest ever since.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• Politics of Germany
• Flick affair, a similar scandal in the 1980s
• Helmut Kohl
• Angela Merkel