Kohlgate

• Share

One newspaper headline cried out: FATHER MURDER. Some of Germany's most experienced, cynical politicians broke down and wept. Helmut Kohl, who as Chancellor from 1982 to 1998 unified Germany, was forced to resign as honorary chairman of the opposition Christian Democratic Union, his reputation soiled by a spreading financial scandal. In the end the statesman who counted Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev among his peers was brought down by the likes of a French wheeler-dealer nicknamed Dede the Sardine.

The fall of Kohl took on elements of a Greek tragedy, complete with reversals of fortune and fatal character flaws. It probably reached a nadir late last week, when Wolfgang Hullen, the official in charge of finance for the C.D.U.'s parliamentary faction, hanged himself at home as the Bundestag opened its investigation into the funding scandal. While the reasons for the suicide remain hazy, Hullen apparently feared being arrested for diverting some of the party's huge cash flow into his own account. But he's not likely to be the scandal's last victim. It has already touched the lives of some of Germany's most senior political figures.

The leading man on the list is Kohl. As recently as last November he was hailed at the Brandenburg Gate as a national hero for deftly steering his country through the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989; now he is demonized as a national embarrassment. The mass-circulation magazine Stern ran Kohl's photo on its cover showing the former Chancellor dappled with mud. He was lampooned on television's most popular interview show as "Helmut Kohleone," the Teutonic equivalent of the Godfather. Throughout his public humiliation, Kohl, 69, has remained defiant. Since the scandal first erupted late last year, he has steadily refused to name the sources of at least $1.2 million in unreported campaign contributions made to the C.D.U. during his tenure as Chancellor. He acknowledged using the cash to set up secret bank accounts, and then funneling money to favored politicians, all of which was illegal under stringent campaign laws introduced by none other than Kohl. He angered even his most stalwart supporters by implying that his promise of anonymity to the sources of the illegal money was more important than Germany's laws. "I regard myself as incapable of breaking my promise," Kohl said in announcing his resignation as honorary chairman of the party. That has only heightened speculation about just where the money may have come from--and why. Was it a donation from rich German party supporters? Or possibly a payoff from foreign businessmen? Andre Guelfi, a French businessman known as Dede the Sardine because of his ownership of a now defunct Moroccan fishing company, said he helped pass more than $40 million to the C.D.U. to help secure a contract for a German-French joint venture. He has since backtracked on many of his accusations, which are being investigated by French and Swiss justice officials.