Election ‘Dirty Tricks’ Charged : Premier of West German State Quits Amid Scandal

Uwe Barschel, the Christian Democratic premier of the West German state of Schleswig-Holstein, announced his resignation Friday in the aftermath of a state election scandal.

Barschel, 43, said in a statement issued in Kiel, the state capital, that he was leaving office even though he had played no role in “dirty tricks” carried out in connection with the campaign for the Sept. 13 election.

He said that irregularities had been carried out by the press aide in his office, Reiner Pfeiffer, and that “the fact remains that Pfeiffer committed his acts from the state government’s press office.”

“Therefore,” Barschel said, “I assume political responsibility, although the acts were carried out without my participation or knowledge.”

Damaging to Kohl

Barschel’s resignation was expected to have a damaging impact on the Christian Democratic government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and also on the career of Finance Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg, a former premier of Schleswig-Holstein and Barschel’s political mentor.

The case has been front-page news in West German newspapers and has been given prominent display on television since the news magazine Der Spiegel published a statement by Pfeiffer that Barschel had ordered him to spy on the opposition Social Democratic candidate, Bjoern Engholm.

According to Pfeiffer’s account, Barschel wanted him to obtain evidence that Engholm was a homosexual. Pfeiffer also said that Barschel asked him to denounce Engholm for tax fraud.

Pfeiffer signed an affidavit in which he said that Barschel ordered him to hire private detectives to search for evidence against Engholm. He said Barschel was responsible for sending German tax authorities an anonymous letter suggesting that Engholm had evaded substantial taxes.

Barschel denounced the accusations as a “stinking lie” and suggested that Pfeiffer simply wanted to collect money from Der Spiegel, a Hamburg-based national magazine. Barschel has filed libel suits against Der Spiegel and Pfeiffer, charging that the magazine published Pfeiffer’s unsubstantiated charges on his word alone.

The Der Spiegel article appeared on the eve of the election and may have been partly responsible for Barschel’s poor showing at the polls. His Christian Democrats lost their absolute majority in the state legislature.

Coalition on Hold

After the election, the Christian Democrats had been expected to form a coalition with the Free Democrats, but Wolf-Dieter Zumpfort, the Free Democrats’ leader, has refused to say whether he will join in such a coalition until after the charges published in Der Spiegel are clarified.

Barschel said in his announcement Friday that he will serve as caretaker premier until the end of the month. Some political observers suggested that new elections might be necessary.

The Christian Democrats won 33 of the 74 seats in the state legislature, a loss of six seats. The Free Democrats won four. Together, they now have one more than the Social Democrats, who increased their strength to 36 from 34. A single seat was won by a Danish-speaking minority party, and its representative said he would support whichever party formed a governing coalition.

Since Kohl’s national election victory in January, the Christian Democrats have lost ground in five of six state elections.