Situate a are deat CHÄUBLE industrialist Karlheinz Schreiber during the 1994 election campaign. He had then denied doing so before the German Parliament, the Bundestag, but was incapable of giving a credible version of the origin of this money
WITH the resignation of Wolfgang Schäuble from all his functions and became entangled in contradictions (the presidency of the Christian Democratic Party and the CDU-CSU with the account given by party treasurer parliamentary group, the crisis of the conservative CDU and the
Brigitte Baumeister.
The rapid decline of the authority of German right has come into the open the party number 2 (after Kohl) reflects the deep crisis of this political current since the departure of the "Chancellor of
German unity", which followed the electoral defeat of September 1998 and the change of government.
A multiple crisis Schäuble was the sole party figure nationally recognized by all its components and in some ways its "ideologue in chief - but since 1992 he was also leader of the parliamentary group, the man who negotiated the compromises between the wings and tendencies of the party, who provided the basis for Kohl to conduct his
There is no longer any personality in the leadership of the CDU enjoying the same authority and experience Schäuble. The crisis of the party is a multiple one: a crisis of leadership, of programme and of relationship with its members and the electorate.
The detonator of the crisis was the more or less fortuitous discovery in Switzerland and Liechtenstein of secret funds held by the party and its Hesse branch, in the course of enquiries carried out by magistrates in Paris and Geneva. In 1991, the investigators found evidence of a "gift" of DMI million in return for the sale of 36 tanks from Bundeswehr (German army) reserves to Saudi Arabia.
This transaction was worth DM450 million, DM220 million of which was earmarked as a bribe for all those who had participated in the negotiations. The delivery of the tanks (an illegal act, since the supplying of arms to "regions of tension" is forbidden by the law) was voted through by a narrow circle within the cabinet, against the wishes of the then Foreign Affairs Minister, Herr Genscher.
Nobody knows how much money went to the CDU through various channels, but it is known that the Secretary of State at the
PAUL KLEISER*
Ministry of Defence, Agnes Hürland, received several millions, which she then transferred to the party. Some money, on the other hand (like the "payment" for the sale of the tanks), went directly into the pockets of intermediary members of the
After the affair came to light, journalists focused on the CDU's methods of financing, the protagonists of the scandal being the same as those in the "Flick affair" which had shaken Germany in the mid-80s. The former chancellor Helmut
Kohl had been forced, when confronted with the facts, to admit that he had accepted some DM2 million between 1993 and 1998 - but the money was at his disposal and the sums were not registered in the party's financial report.
Moreover, he has never revealed the names of the donators, who were, according to him, "good friends". Between 1990 and 1992, the former chancellor had already personally received a sum of money which was undoubtedly higher.
### Scandal deepens
After the Kohl affair, the scandal deepened in the CDU in Hesse. To understand these "affairs" it is necessary to review how the CDU has been financed since the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949. The CDU has always - because of the federal structure of the RFA, but also because of the German tradition - been a kind of federation, where the branches of the Länder (the provinces) played an important role.
For a very long time, the centre in Bonn, headed between 1949 and 1963 by Chancellor Adenauer, was relatively weak. Above all, the party, with its 200,000 members paying derisory dues, was not "competitive" with a social democracy which had four times more members and a much stronger discipline. Already, under
Adenauer, the financing of the party involved "gifts" from the capitalist big bourgeoisie.
Adenauer's fundamental political conceptions involved the integration of West
Germany in a western bloc with France, the Benelux countries and Italy, dominated by reactionary Catholicism and a ferocious anti-Communism. Thus, German unification was a recurrent theme of his speeches but played no practical role in his policy.
### Resources needed
To pursue his political line against opposition both from social democracy and tendencies in his own party (led by Jakob Kaiser and Ernst Lemmer, from the Berlin group who did not agree with his policy of a divided Germany, he needed considerable resources. Pferdmenges - a Cologne banker who had become rich thanks to the "Aryanization" of Jewish goods - and Abs, the chief executive of the Deutsche Bank, condemned to 10 years in prison because of his collaboration with the Nazis, but freed at the beginning of the Cold War.
The third thief in this illustrious circle was the Minister without Portfolio and official reporter of the (racist) Nuremberg laws, Hans Globke, who received the contributions. The president of Germany's industrialists, Fritz Berg, also ensured the CDU's massive subvention by big German capital (the CDU's coalition partner, the liberal FDP party, also received funds).
But in 1958 things had to change, since the Supreme Court in Karlsruhe forbade this kind of direct financing of (bourgeois) parties - the judges saw it as a profound violation of equality of chance in the elecInternational Viewpoint #320 April 2000 33
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Germany *
* Germany tions. The bourgeois parties then founded a "public utility foundation" in RhinelandPalatinate Staatsbürgerliche Vereinigung (SV). The official objective was the training of young cadre in politics and industry, as well as the mastering of scientific techniques that could help with political decision-making.
The young Helmut Kohl was head of the parliamentary group of the CDU in Rhineland-Palatinate in the 1960s and he became Prime Minister of the province in 1969. Throughout, he kept a vigilant eye on the money coming in from the SV. On several occasions, he intervened to prevent the legal authorities from taking too close an interest in the accounts of the SV. Between 1969 and 1980, the SV was able to collect some DM250 million, the great bulk of which was diverted to the CDU, with the rest going to the FDP and the
Following the Flick affair (this trust had contributed enormously to the success of the SV, but it had also organized its own secret funds to influence political decisions), when several managers and politicians were condemned by tribunals, this kind of party financing became impossible and the SV was dissolved. The courts seized a part of the "treasure", but some DM13 million ended up in the CDU's
Switzerland Liechtenstein.
### Finance law changed
In 1994, the law on party financing was amended with the agreement of the parties of the CDU. Henceforth, secret funds would no longer simply be confiscated by the administration - any party that organized or tolerated such practices would have to pay a sum equivalent to double the amount to the state. If this law were applied strictly against the CDU, the party should repay around DM700 million, which would surely bankrupt it (its annual budget is in the order of DM250 million).
Obviously, the other parties, SPD and PDS included, have no interest in such a destabilization of the political situation in
Germany.
But the first demand from the administration of the Bundestag, which concerns the year 1998 alone, is for DM41.3 million. And there remains another black hole, namely the affair of the sale of Leuna chemical complex in the former GDR to the French company Elf-Aquitaine - in this
34 International Viewpoint #320 April 2000 case bribes amounting to an estimated DM80 million were paid. Nobody knows, moreover, if it is the CDU itself or merely party members who received the money and how much they got - the documents relating to this affair have disappeared from the Chancellery.
Since its foundation between 1945 and 1949, the CDU was never simply a party, but in a way a confederation of parties. The name "Union" was chosen through a desire to end the division of the Christian political field - before the Third Reich, there had been the Centre Party (Catholic) and several Protestant parties.
### Christians unite
Catholics and Protestants united in a single party against the "atheistic" curthe Nazis and the Communists - this new party would intepolitical Catholicism, Protestantism and bourgeois conservatism (with the exception of the nationalists who for the most part joined the FDP). But the spinal column of the CDU was definitely Catholicism. Even today, some 75% of practicing Catholics vote for the CDU, although this amounts to a category in permanent decline. Of the 200 CDU-CSU deputies in the current Bundestag, 125 are
Christianity was a kind of lowest common denominator for an organization which brought together in its ranks small and big farmers, merchants, artisans, petty and big bourgeoisie, civil servants, housewives and pensioners. The CDU was (and the COU 1% the her of e Cente during Republic.
After the war of 1870-1871, which ended in German unification and the foundation of the Empire under Prussian domination, the ultramontane Catholics entered into conflict with the new Protestant regime in Berlin. The emperor and his
Chancellor Bismarck did not wish to tolerate a double identity, with Berlin and
Rome. Hence Bismarck unleashed the
"Kulturkampf" (cultural struggle) against the Catholics of the Reich to repress the power of the Church. This struggle provoked a wave of self-organization and politicization of Catholicism and the emergence of a Catholic party, the Centre. The consequences are felt to this day.
After the First World War and the revolutionary crisis of 1919, the Centre became - with the Social Democracy and the liberals "of the left" - one of the pillars of the Weimar Republic. The Centre (and in Bavaria the Popular Bavarian Party) was based on the Catholic milieu with its abundance of very heterogeneous groups, organizations and structures, relatively independent and autonomous. To encompass social layers which were so different and with such divergent interests, a policy of negotiation and compromise was necessary, which was developed during the 1920s and from which Adenauer's CDU greatly profited after the war.
But the Centre and the CDU of Adenauer were not mass parties - apart from the deputies and councillors, it was primarily notables who were organized in it. The Catholic milieus, and to a lesser extent some Protestant milieus, were often mobilized during elections with the assistance of clerics - only to return to their homes afterwards and continue their cultural or community activities. There was a Catholic milieu, but it was decentralized, localist or regionalist. From 1949 to 1994, the CDU-CSU always defeated its principal rival, the Social Democratic SPD, at federal elections, with the sole exception of 1972, when Willy Brandt led an SDPFDP Social-Liberal coalition to power.
### Economic miracle
In the post-war period the Union was identified with the formation of the "free" federal republic, with the integration of 12 million refugees coming from Eastern Prussia, Silesia and the Sudetenland Erhard, the representative of Protestantism in the Union.
However, during the 1960s, the leadership of the CDU did not understand that the policy of detente between the USA and the USSR could undermine the foreign policy of the FRG (which broke diplomatic relations with any country sending an ambassador to East Berlin). The radicalization of youth in the second half of the
1960s also frightened the CDU and its
"happy medium". All these events led to splits in the conservative camp with defeat in the elections as a result. For a party which was virtually addicted to power it was a profound shock.
During the 1960s, Helmut Kohl was
regarded as a "Young Turk" in his party. In 1967, he wrote that "if one studied the CDU scientifically, one would discover that it did not amount to a democratic party". He organized around himself a circle of intellectuals with the goal of modernizing the CDU and making it into a party of members.
He was much helped by the big wave of politicization in the 1960s and 70s. Rainer Barzel, CDU leader from 1969 to 1973, tried everything to bring down the SPD-FDP coalition - with the help of money and posts, some FDP deputies were integrated in the parliamentary fraction of the CDU.
All seemed ripe for a return to a coalition dominated by the conservatives. But Barzel failed in his attempts and lost the elections. In 1973, Helmut Kohl was elected president of the CDU with a big majority.
Under the leadership of Kohl, supported by the "modernizer" Biedenkopf and the social Catholic Geissler, a reorganization of the party began. In 1971, the CDU had 329,000 members, in 1977 664,000, and at its apogee, when Kohl won the 1983 elections, 735,000.
The party had won some (petty) bourgeois Protestant layers who were shocked by the revolt of the students and the "socialist" discourse of the young members of the SPD. With the 180,000 members of the Bavarian CSU, the Union came to equal the SPD of the time.
Not only did the CDU become a party of members, but the internal structure also was changed; the "loose groupings" of notables were replaced by a bureaucratic structure and an apparatus, which was capable of organizing political campaigns. But the fundamental traits of the programme remained the same, the CDU remaining very much opposed to the new "Ostpolitik" Brandt/Scheel
Freedom or Socialism!
In 1976, Kohl was for the first time a candidate for the Chancellorship. His campaign slogan was typical - "Freedom or Socialism!". With 48.6% of the votes he almost gained an absolute majority of seats in Parliament.
But it was the neoliberal wave and the change of conjuncture that led to the FDP's decision to throw in its lot with the CDU. In 1982 the Schmidt government was overthrown by a motion of censure and Kohl was elected Chancellor. At the end of the 1980s, his regime became fairly unpopular, even in the ranks of his own party, not only because of his policy of austerity, but also because of the financial scandals which began to emerge.
At the CDU congress of 1989, the "modernizing" wing around Süsmuth, Geissler, Biedenkopf, Späth and others prepared a coup against Kohl with the aim of replacing him by the prime minister of Bade-Wurttemberg, Lothar Spath.
But with the growing number of refugees coming from the East and the opening of the frontier between Austria and Hungary, the discontent rapidly died down - the party did not want to "change horses in midstream".
Because of the upheaval in the world situation and the break-up of the Eastern bloc, Kohl became the "Chancellor of German unity", with his regime within the party becoming more and more autocratic.
The dangerous victory
After the (narrow) CDU victory in the 1994 elections, Heiner Geissler called his new book The dangerous victory.! In analyzing the results, he came to the conclusion that the CDU was in the process of losing its structural majority in society. The CDU had won the elections thanks to pensioners and to workers from the former GDR - Geissler saw very clearly that a rapid change of attitude among the elderly and the loss of confidence in the GDR would reverse the situation, which was effectively what happened 2 years later with the victory of Schröder in 1998.
But the process which would shake the CDU the most was the phenomena of globalization of capital and the loss of the "hereditary" enemy to Globalization produced a major rupture within the CDU between the "Internet genand the "happy medium", between the winners and the losers of capitalist modernization (above all in the petty bourgeois milieus).
It became very difficult to combine a discourse on security, which also included social security, with a discourse on modernization and progress, where the aim is to dismantle the system of social protection and public services and where the traditional petty bourgeoisie are being asked to adapt themselves to the transformations caused by global competition. The grass roots structures of the CDU are increasingly depleted, with political meetings being replaced by media spectacle.
Schäuble had tried, starting from the 1990s, to fill the ideological vacuum by a more nationalist discourse. He philosophized on the necessity of stabilizing an established order (and order for him means nation-state), through a reintroduction of traditional values - according to him, individuals must subordinate themselves to the people and to the Nation. "Without a developed civic spirit, a strengthened sense of duty, a consolidated devotion to the community, a liberal state cannot endure".
This nationalist turn led to the blackmail exerted against the SPD to make it accept an amendment of the constitution concerning political asylum seekers. This right was practically abolished. But nationalism rapidly came up against European integration, reinforced by the introduction of the Euro, which massively tore apart the petty bourgeois milieus
The most damaging development for the CDU was probably the loss of a great part of the young leaders of the Catholic movements. Since the 1970s, these leaders were often involved in the anti-nuclear campaigns (the struggle began exactly 25 years ago at Wyhl near Fribourg) or in the multiple ecological struggles, as well as in the big waves of pacifist movements against the arms race. A good part among them joined the Greens.
### Patent careerism
Now, social Catholicism is virtually a dead letter in the CDU. The young personnel of the party are characterized by an absence of social base and by patent careerism. None of these young leaders has proved that they would be capable of integrating the different currents of conservatism. Already, an intense struggle is underway for the succession to Schäuble at the head of the party, but without a really credible candidate. Kohl's 25 years as head of the party weighs heavily. In this situation, a reactionary populist like Haider would have some chance of making inroads into the electorate of the CDU (and of the SPD). The least that can be said is that the future of the CDU is more sombre than ever before. * Paul Kleiser is editor of the bimonthly Sozialistische Zeitung - SOZ. .Heiner Geissler, Gefährlicher Sieg. Die Bundestagswahl1994 und ihre Folgen, Köln 1995. International Viewpoint #320 April 2000 35
MORE than 150 activists and scholars from 14 countries of South Asia,