The scandal that helped Merkel become chancellor
| Karlheinz Schreiber. |
“Angela Merkel should be grateful to Karlheinz Schreiber.
After 10 years, Canadian officials this week extradited the former arms lobbyist and he will soon face charges of tax evasion, fraud and bribery in Germany. Without him, she would not be where she is now: the Chancellor of Germany and, according to Forbes magazine, the most powerful woman in the world.”
“One of the biggest scandals in German political party financing involved recently deceased German industrialist, Friedrich Karl Flick, one of the world’s richest men — and came to be known as the Flick Affair. After selling his interests in auto manufacturer Daimler-Benz to Deutsche Bank, Flick donated money to Kohl’s CDU as a form of tax dodge. Ostensibly the money was for a worthy task: the 'cultivation of the political landscape' conducive to business interests. That was permmissible under a law that allowed tax exemptions on investments considered of public, economic benefit. Later on, in 1981, tax inspectors discovered that Flick had actually been secretly donating millions more to all leading German political parties and, in some cases, had received tax exemptions in return. Three men were eventually brought to trial — Flick’s business manager, Eberhard von Brauchitsch, former economics minister Hans Friedrichs and then-Economics Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff (both from the FREE Democratic Party, or FDP) — and were convicted of tax evasion or assisting tax evasion.”
“As more details came to light over the weeks that followed, it became clear that the CDU had accepted illegal donations throughout the 1990s and had developed a MONEY laundering system to deal with them. By December, honorary chairman of the CDU and former Chancellor Helmut Kohl had partially admitted to the secret financing, speaking about 'confidential, special gratuities for party members and party associations' that made 'separate ACCOUNT management' seem reasonable. 'I wanted to serve my party,' Kohl said.”
“Meanwhile Kohl’s likely successor in the CDU, Wolfgang Schäuble, was becoming ever more enmeshed in the Schreiber scandal. At the time, Schäuble was one of the most popular politicians in the country and in 1997 Kohl had handpicked Schäuble to succeed him at the head of the CDU — but because the CDU lost the election in 1998, Schäuble became the party’s chairman. When questioned in parliament in 1999 about whether he had accepted a donation during a meeting with Schreiber, Schäuble disputed the question. But in a radio interview in January, he admitted he had met Schreiber at least once more. That created suspicion that a second donation had been made. Whatever the case, indignation within the ranks of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) toward Schäuble grew so much that he was forced to resign. So how exactly did Merkel profit from the Schreiber incident? The former party secretary became aware that, in the face of an unexpected question in parliament, Schäuble had lied about taking CASHfrom Schreiber. Merkel realized at the time that this secret would eventually come out and would inevitably lead to Schäuble’s downfall. She also knew that, if she wasn’t careful, she could go down with him. After all, it was only logical that the general secretary of a party would have the confidence of the head of that party.”
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