Kohl’s Party Pressures Him to Identify Secret Donors

In a dramatic double-barrel attack Wednesday on Helmut Kohl, his party pressed the former German chancellor to identify secret campaign donors and a top party official openly accused him of breaking the law.

The conservative Christian Democrats distanced themselves from their former leader in the sharpest terms yet in an attempt to limit political fallout from the scandal.

At a meeting of the party’s executive board, members unanimously warned Kohl to disclose everything about anonymous cash contributions he says he received as chairman.

And the party’s general secretary published a scathing commentary in Germany’s leading conservative daily, urging a break with Kohl.

“Kohl’s acknowledged actions have caused damage to the party,” Angela Merkel wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “It’s up to us to take our future in our hands.”

She suggested that Kohl give up his seat in parliament and his honorary party chairmanship and retire from politics.

The outburst reflected the growing frustration of Kohl’s successors at his refusal to reveal campaign donors who he says gave him as much as $1 million in cash between 1993 and 1998.

Merkel said Kohl’s “illegal act” of accepting anonymous donations put his credibility and that of the party at stake.

The scandal, which exploded last month with Kohl’s admission that he ran secret party funds, has hastened efforts by his conservatives to escape the large shadow of the chancellor who ran the party with an iron fist for 25 years.

Merkel, who once served in Kohl’s Cabinet, urged him to accept that the Kohl era was “irrevocably over” with his election defeat last year after 16 years in power--despite his legacy as the chancellor who reunited Germany.

Several party leaders appeared glum as they arrived for their meeting in Bonn, which Kohl did not attend.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, who succeeded Kohl as party chief last year, said the board agreed that all participants in the secret fund system, including Kohl, should disclose what they know to an auditing firm investigating the party’s accounts.

Kohl has said he promised the donors anonymity and won’t break his word. He has rejected allegations that he was open to bribes and said he used the secret accounts to distribute cash as he thought best to strengthen the regional structure of the party.