Scandal-time in Germany

Timothy Garton Ash

Munich 'Why is Germany so boring?,' I am often asked. Or to be more precise: why do West German politics seem so bor- ing to the British newspaper reader? The answer is that for the most part they are boring. Deliberately so. After the politics of Nazism, which were nothing if not exciting, Bonn has made a virtue of boredom. The very language of German politics is, as a rule, wilfully colourless, bureaucratic, purged of emotive rhetoric.

Just recently, however, the boring Bundestag has been lit by scandal-light. Not one but two senior Ministers are engulfed in Skandal. Now a Skandal must not be con- fused with an English scandal. In the typical English scandal, of course, a Conservative Minister is discovered with a lady who may or may not be a Russian spy, but is certainly not his wife. He is then expelled on a wave of humbug. In the typical Skandal, a Con- servative Minister is discovered to have a Nazi past. He then continues in high office until an honourable retirement. Such is the case of the retiring President of the Federal Republic, Herr Carstens.

The case of General Gunter Kiessling, Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO in Europe, is not so typical. True, Kiessling began his glittering military career by volunteering for the Wehrmacht at the age of 14 in 1939. But since the war he has been an exemplary soldier for democracy; the one odd thing about him being that he was the only unmarried general in the whole Bundeswehr. According to the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit, Kiessling's former com- manding general considered this a blot on the Corps' honour and atttempted to 'con- vert him to the married state'. In vain. When he joined the American Supreme Commander, General Bernard Rogers, in April 1982, four-star General Kiessling was still a bachelor. Rogers seems to have taken an immediate dislike to the queer cove assigned to him as Deputy. The sentiment was mutual. Kiessling is known to have ap- plied for a transfer, but there was no suitable job going.

So when it was announced last month that Kiessling had been sacked by the Federal Defence Minister, Manfred Worner, many Germans immediately assumed that this was another example of American high-handedness and 'im- perialistic' intervention in West Germany's affairs. Young peace activists were sudden- ly full of sympathy for the Bundeswehr

General. Today that rumour seems to have been effectively discounted.

Instead, Kiessling is said to have been sacked for homosexual interests, which allegedly made him a security risk. Accor. ding to government sources, the Military Security Service — known by its German acronym as MAD — first received a tiP about Kiessling's homosexuality last stun' mer. In the autumn a MAD-man privatelY approached the Cologne police with a photo of Kiessling, retouched to conceal the uniform. The police touted the photo around the gay bars of Cologne, and in the `Tom Tom' cellar-bar a young barman call- ed Micha identified Kiessling as a regular client — known to the lads as 'der Jiirgen von der Bundeswehr'. The same identifica- tion was made in another bar, known to the police as the meeting-place of criminals as well as gays (and, presumably, of gaY criminals). On this evidence, MAD con' eluded that the second most senior officer in the West German army, and DeputY Supreme Commander of NATO in Europe, was a 'security risk' — and the Defence Minister fired him.

`Tom Tom' was doing great business last week. Again and again young Micha had to tell his tale to impatient journalists. Yes, said Micha, 'der Jurgen von der Bundeswehr' was here again only last Wednesday! But last Wednesday the scan' dal had already broken and General Kiessl- ing was ill in bed. He firmly denies the charge of homosexuality. So has he a gaY Doppelganger? In a dim corner of the cellar-bar journalists spied an elderly gentleman who looked like the General, Was this the false Jurgen von der Bundeswehr? 'It's not me!' protested the poor old man, hurriedly paid his bill and left.

Now the General has demanded a military hearing to restore his good name. If it turns out that Kiessling was wrongly ac' cused by MAD then the Defence Minister will probably have to resign.

The second Bonn Skandal, the 'Flick Af' fair', is perhaps less amusing but in the end much more serious. The 'German Watergate' threatens to remove a linchPln of Chancellor Kohl's coalition government' the Free Democrat Economics Minister, Count Otto Lambsdorff. Moreover, it garishly illuminates the intimate connec- tions between big business and government in the Federal Republic. Lambsdorff is ac- cused of granting the mighty firm of Oleic tax exemption on a capital gain of about £200 million, in more or less direct return for very substantial contributions to PartY funds. As in the Watergate affair, the story of the investigation reads like a thriller; but the

heroes are modest tax inspectors and state

attorneys rather than journalists. A tax swindle by a crooked monk (who seems to have broken all his vows) led them to the chief book-keeper at Flick's. In his posses- sion they found a neat black account book' in which he had carefully listed cash Payments — on average, about £10,000 a time — to 'Friends of the House'. The list of names read like a 'Who's Who' of West German politics. From there it was a short step into the office of the chairman of Flick, Herr Eberhard von Brauchitsch. Here they discovered files in which von Brauchitsch, nephew of Hitler's commander-in-chief, had kept an exact record of his lobbying — as of a military campaign. He wrote proudly to Herr Flick about the advantages gained for the House' by what he called 'the special cultivation of the Bonn landscape'. In his defence, von Brauchitsch does not deny that this 'special cultivation' involved large payments to politicians and founda- tions of all parties. All he denies is that these payments were made to Lambsdorff and others qua office-holders, for services rendered (or to be rendered) in their official capacities: for example, the tax exemption on Flick's investment of a large part of its Capital gain in the American firm of W.R. Grace & Co. The evidence collected by the state attorneys seems nonetheless to be pret- ty damning —judging from the extensive extracts published by the weekly Der Spiegel. Here, for example, is a note by von Brauchitsch on a satisfactory meeting with the treasurer of the SPD, who will 'give a Positive indication' to the (SPD) Finance Minister on the tax question. Next day Flick. Pays half a million Deutschemarks to the SFD's Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. Yes, that might just be a coincidence; but the Brauchitsch notes and the black account book are full of such 'coincidences'.

Even if Lambsdorff, Flick, von 13. rauchitsch and the rest are finally cleared in the courts (if they ever come to trial), the Flick affair will cast Watergate-like shadows over the 'Bonn landscape' for some time to come. If the Nixon tapes revealed the mores of one administration, the Brauchitsch notes reveal the mores of a Whole political-industrial establishment. And what extraordinary mores they are! Obviously companies all over the world contribute funds to political parties; ob- viously they try to cultivate government contacts. But how? In the Flick affair we find industrial contributions, in particular to the FDP, being `laundered' through a network of front organisations (including the crooked monks) and foreign bank ac- counts which would do credit to the Mafia.

We find senior civil servants — 'Friends of the House', we understand — politely for-

warding secret documents to the in- dustrialist whom they most nearly concern. Most astonishing of all, we find senior Politicians personally accepting cash con- tributions to their 'constituency work' 4I0-15,000 at a time, in banknotes in a plain envolope! These are scenes from a com- rnunist textbook about the workings of the capitalist state.

Von Brauchitsch says in his defence: this !s nothing new, such cash payments are the

tradition of the House'. And he reveals from the Flick archives how the company financed politicians of all parties in the

Weimar Republic, and again in the 1950s. What he does not reveal is the enormous growth of the Flick empire in the Third Reich, when the `Friends of the House' in- cluded Goering and Himmler, who reward- ed Flick with profitable armaments con- tracts and slave labour from the concentra- tion camps.

Like Watergate, the worst part of the scandal is the attempted cover-up. Unlike Watergate, senior members of all the main parties were involved in the attempt, since they had all, directly or indirectly, accepted some of Flick's largesse. In the autumn of 1981 they prepared themselves what would in effect have been a total amnesty for any irregularities or crimes in connection with the Party contributions. Fortunately, like Watergate, the cover-up was foiled by just men using the instruments of a parliamen- tary democracy. The just men, in this case, included the then Justice Minister (who im- mediately rejected the proposed amnesty as immoral and unconstitutional), parliamen- tarians of all parties, tax inspectors, state attorneys, and journalists — notably from Der Spiegel, which is to be prosecuted for publishing the legal evidence. The prosecu- tion of Herr Lambsdorff is unlikely to be so swift; nor does he seem at all inclined to resign, even though his Ministry has now decided that Flick should after all pay tax on the gain. Meanwhile, the Government has prepared a new law which will give political parties the tax privileges of charities. So in future there will be no need for the apparatus of buff envelopes and crooked monks.

Will Bonn then be boring again? The liveliest political speculation here concerns the future of the boisterous Bavarian Franz-Jozef Strauss (who, incidentally, also received the odd DM 950,000 — c.£250,000 — from Flick, for the CSU). If either Defence Minister W6rner or Economics Minister Lambsdorff is toppled by their respective Skandale, will Chancellor Kohl be able to refuse the vacant post to Strauss, if he wants it? It would indeed be ironical if Strauss, who in 1962 was himself toppled as Defence Minister by the 'Spiegel Affair', were to be returned to Bonn by another scandal. But one thing Strauss is not is boring.