German ruling class exposed: Kohl bribery scandal

by MC5

The top German government official from 1982-1998 -- Chancellor 
Helmut Kohl has admitted to keeping a secret donors fund and 
thereby breaking the law. For some months now, the bourgeois press 
has been admitting that he has received bribes from arms merchants 
and others. The latest revelation shows that the second-ranking 
"defense" official in Kohl's government and the former head of 
domestic intelligence services received some money in 1991, part 
of $12 million in bribes for allowing 36 tanks to be sold to Saudi 
Arabia,(1) but older revelations target Kohl himself.

On January 18th, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that ruled 
Germany with as much success as the same party in Italy after 
World War II stripped Kohl of his honorary chairpersynship of the 
party but left him in his seat in Parliament. As long as he holds 
that seat he cannot be prosecuted.(2) He had been the actual party 
chair for 25 years.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, current CDU chair, took a bag of money from a 
German-Canadian arms dealer, says the dealer Karlheinz Schreiber 
himself. Schreiber also admits to giving another $520,000 to the 
CDU's secret accounts separately. German law requires reporting of 
donations over $10,500.(2) It is unclear how many and which arms 
deals Schreiber has been involved with.

Wolfgang Huellen, the CDU's persyn in charge of budget and 
finances in the Parliament, committed suicide after claiming he 
found some irregularities.(2)

The case of the tanks going to Saudi Arabia was urgent and 
required even more monetary greasing than usual because the tanks 
actually came from the German government's stock, not the company 
itself. The company promised to restock the German government's 
tanks at a later date. Saudia Arabia urgently wanted the chemical 
warfare resistant tanks because of the war with Iraq.

In earlier issues, MIM has exposed the other major leaders of the 
largest European countries. French President Mitterand was a Nazi 
collaborator in World War II. (3) Italian prime ministers have 
fallen with charges ranging from arms trade bribes, narco-
trafficking money and murder.(4)

The masses are correct to think that no matter how nice he or she 
might seem on TV, a politician who gets to the top in an 
imperialist country is by definition corrupt. So much money and 
shading of the truth was necessary to win election.

Although Kohl's dirty deals involved a wide range of industries 
including big oil, the arms industry is the most important that 
MIM knows of at the moment. The late French president Mitterand 
and French secret service also took part, partly as wishing to do 
Kohl some favors.

The reason these old deals have not come to light before, in all 
these major capitalist countries is the Cold War and the poor 
quality of the media with the most access to these leaders. While 
the Cold War was on, the Christian Democratic parties of Italy and 
Germany could do no wrong in the eyes of the imperialists, because 
they were anti-Soviet. When the Cold War ended, all the dirty 
secrets started to come out.

The reactionary U.$. think tank called the Heritage Foundation had 
this to say about Kohl: "In a showdown over the deployment of U.S. 
intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the early 1980s, Kohl 
reaffirmed Germany's tie to the West at a critical moment in Cold 
War history. His stand helped reinvigorate Western resolve, which 
in turn contributed to the Soviet Union's 'new thinking' in the 
mid-1980s."(5) The Heritage Foundation goes on to say that "When 
the history of the period is fully sorted out, though, there is a 
fourth central figure, a leader far less acclaimed in his own 
time, who is certain to get his due. Former German Chancellor 
Helmut Kohl's legacy is truly remarkable -- so much so that 
history will likely regard him as one of the most influential 
figures of modern Europe."(5) The Heritage Foundation says that 
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II are the 
three leaders deserving the most credit for the collapse of the 
Soviet Union and the rosy state of the world as seen by the 
Heritage Foundation.

Studying cause and effect, MIM believes that the profits involved 
in the arms industry tip the balance against global peace. People 
making large sums of money have an incentive to secretly foment 
hatreds between peoples so that their weapons will be used and 
bought anew. The very top government leaders are in the pockets of 
the arms dealers as this case shows.

How much does capitalism in the arms industry hurt the chances for 
global peace is a good question. No matter what conflicts these 
arms dealers incite for their profits, the proletariat does the 
dying. MIM would say that even causing a one percent chance of 
all-out imperialist war each year is too much of a chance to take 
for any rational people who are not arms dealers.

After playing Russian Roulette (in which the bullet chamber is 
different each time and not related at all to the one that came up 
in previous spins) with 100 chambers and one bullet, the chance of 
survival is only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other words, a seemingly 
small one percent annual chance of world war means eventual doom. 
After 100 years or turns of Russian Roulette, the chances of 
survival are only 36.6%. After 200 years, survival has only a 
13.4% chance.

If socialism succeeds in cutting back the chances of all-out war 
only so slightly, it justifies itself. Kohl used secret bank 
accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The dictatorship of the 
proletariat will crack down on the cash economy and production for 
profit. In doing so, the dictatorship of the proletariat may pull 
one bullet out of the Russian Roulette chamber.

Notes:

1. New York Times 7 February 2000, p. a11.

2. Washington Post 21 January 2000, p. a01.

3. See MIM Notes 93.

4. See MIM Notes 91.

5. http://www.policyreview.com/aug99/gedmin.html