Kohl May Face Charges Over Secret Donations

German federal prosecutors took the first step Wednesday toward criminal prosecution of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, undermining his towering legacy as the architect of German unity with allegations that he misappropriated $1 million while in office.

Embodying the adage “the bigger they come, the harder they fall,” Kohl’s reputation as one of the greatest European statesmen of the century appeared shattered by the unprecedented proceedings, in which prosecutors in Bonn sought suspension of his parliamentary immunity to pursue charges of criminal misconduct. Parliament is not expected to block the investigation.

The man who ruled this prosperous democracy for 16 years and headed the Christian Democratic Union for a quarter of a century could face up to five years in jail if convicted on charges of breach of trust for accepting illegal political donations.

Much as Richard Nixon’s reputation for foreign policy triumphs was undone by Watergate, so have Kohl’s accomplishments been swept aside by the torrent of corruption allegations.

The former chancellor is already the subject of a parliamentary investigation into whether unreported contributions from an arms broker and a French oil conglomerate were kickbacks for allegedly influencing government decisions. Kohl has vehemently insisted that his leadership “was never for sale.”

The parliamentary probe, expected to take as long as two years, could result in fines for Kohl, who only six weeks ago was on the world stage to take his bows for helping bring down the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But the federal case launched in the former capital, Bonn, signals a far more serious action against the erstwhile giant of European integration. Not only could Kohl serve time if eventually charged and convicted, but his reputation as one of the most influential statesmen of the post-World War II era has already been overshadowed by his becoming the first western German leader in modern history to become the subject of a criminal investigation.

Federal prosecutors in Bonn, the scene of Kohl’s alleged crimes, set the process in motion Wednesday by notifying the president of the lower house of parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, that they were seeking the suspension of Kohl’s immunity as a member of the Bundestag. That step must be made before formal charges can be brought.

Thierse has 48 hours to consult with party leaders and move to block the immunity suspension. But Thierse, a former activist with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party, said immediately after the Bonn announcement that he believes a full airing of the CDU financing scandal would benefit all German political parties.

“This whole affair is a deep scar on German history,” Thierse told ZDF television. “That a German chancellor is forced to admit that he violated party laws and the constitution and his oath of office is an outrage.”

All political factions within the Bundestag, including the CDU, are united on allowing the criminal case to proceed, said Joerg van Essen, a Free Democratic Party lawmaker on the immunity committee.

Kohl, who has kept a low profile since acknowledging Nov. 30 that he maintained secret bank accounts as party leader to hide certain contributions, issued a statement from his Berlin office saying he accepted the federal criminal probe “with regret” but would cooperate to the extent that he could.

The 69-year-old former chancellor has refused the demands of current CDU leaders to name names and escape suspicions of having pocketed some of the money--a position that legal analysts interpret as invocation of his right to avoid self-incrimination.

Kohl vowed in mid-December to keep the identities of the donors secret, saying he had promised them anonymity at the time of the payments and would never break his word. A poll conducted by the mass-circulation newspaper Bild, based on readers calling in to give their opinions, found that 58% supported his promise of silence.

As fresh disclosures of secret payments have dominated newspaper headlines and topped nightly news broadcasts, Kohl’s career has been deemed a shambles and his legacy indelibly tainted.

“Kohl’s Second Collapse: A Farewell in Disgrace,” the influential weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel proclaims on its latest cover, showing a crumbled marble statue of “the eternal chancellor” whom Schroeder toppled from power 14 months ago.

Even Kohl’s successors in the CDU hierarchy have come to regard him as a political burden; the party has dropped measurably in the weekly rankings of public trust as crucial state elections approach in the new year.

Angela Merkel, CDU general secretary, accused Kohl of inflicting severe damage on the party and urged him to disclose the origins, extent and use of the payments defined as illegal if not properly reported to tax authorities and the public. The CDU stands to lose millions of dollars in government funding for political parties if it fails to file a corrected financial report for 1998 by Friday.

Kohl’s silence has served to distance him further from other leading figures in his party.

“The ball is in his court,” CDU Deputy Chairman Christian Wulff said earlier this week, suggesting that Kohl would be on his own if he continued to refuse the party’s calls for full disclosure.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, Kohl’s successor as CDU chairman and a longtime ally, conceded at the time of the parliamentary inquiry vote that a thorough probe into the allegations was needed “in the interests of democracy to clear up these serious charges.”

Schaeuble has since said little publicly about the affair, prompting German media and political analysts to criticize his “vow of silence” as damaging to CDU interests.

Schroeder has refrained from making political capital out of the CDU affair, saying only that such scandals besmirch all German politicians. Regional leaders in Schroeder’s own party have lately been accused of accepting unseemly gifts from local businesses, which seems to have encouraged the new chancellor to push for better regulation of political finances instead of reveling in Kohl’s fall from grace.