Germany to Probe Kohl Party Funds

German lawmakers voted unanimously Thursday to investigate the financial dealings of Helmut Kohl’s party after the former chancellor admitted that he kept secret bank accounts for its political donations.

The probe may take as long as two years to determine whether a controversial $530,000 payment to the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, was actually a kickback for Kohl’s approval of an arms sale. But the respected statesman credited with reuniting Germany and reconciling a divided Europe faced immediate risk of damage to his reputation from the scathing allegations aired during a heated 90-minute debate preceding the vote.

At one point in the acrimonious exchange, a young man in the visitors gallery overlooking the chamber dumped dozens of photocopied 100-mark notes onto the sparring deputies in protest of the alleged corruption.

The widening scandal surrounding a 1991 sale of tanks to Saudi Arabia through a Bavarian arms dealer also threatens to engulf Kohl’s successors in the conservative leadership. Key figures in the incident under review have claimed in media interviews that current party Chairman Wolfgang Schaeuble and Volker Ruehe, the CDU’s front-running candidate for governor of Schleswig-Holstein state, also were aware of the financial irregularities now haunting the party.

Calls for an inquiry into CDU campaign financing have been reverberating through the corridors of power since November, when a Bavarian prosecutor issued arrest warrants for former CDU Treasurer Walther Leisler Kiep and the arms broker, Karlheinz Schreiber.

Kohl vehemently denied at a news conference Tuesday that “political decisions made by me could be bought” but conceded that the party had kept secret accounts to hide campaign donations. He was not present for Wednesday’s vote, although he is a member of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.

“We want to know what happened to the money. Where did it go? What was it used for? . . . Was it meant to influence decisions?” demanded Frank Hofmann, a deputy from the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Schaeuble told the assembly that he accepted the need for an inquiry in the face of such disturbing accusations, saying it was “in the interests of democracy to clear up these serious charges as quickly and completely as possible.”

But he warned his opponents in the Social Democratic and Greens parties that they should be wary of taking political advantage of the probe.

“Enjoy it while it lasts because it will not last long,” a shaken Schaeuble told his rivals. “It will not distract from the weakness of your government. The majority in Germany no longer backs you. The last year has been a lost year for Germany.”

The mass-circulation Bild newspaper claimed that the donation following the arms sale was just the tip of a corruption iceberg. The newspaper insinuated that Schaeuble knew more than he has admitted, noting that the last of the secret accounts was closed just a month after he took over the party leadership from Kohl in November 1998.

The first sitting of the 15-member investigative committee is set for Dec. 16, but its Social Democratic chairman, Volker Neumann, has already cautioned that the probe may take two years to complete.