Kohl treasurer 'finds' 1m marks

Kohl scandal led to crushing defeats for his party

BERLIN, Germany -- A German party treasurer who helped bring down Helmut Kohl has mysteriously found one million marks ($460,000) in his bank account.

Walther Leisler Kiep, ex-treasurer of the Kohl's Christian Democrats (CDU), has returned the cash to the party.

Kiep, who admitted in 1999 that he collected illegal campaign donations for the CDU at secret meetings in Swiss parking lots, said he had stumbled across the amount while checking his bank balance.

Kiep's admission to prosecutors in 1999 that he took one million marks from a donor in an attache case at a meeting in a Swiss parking lot was the opening blow to the scandal that ultimately forced Kohl to resign as honorary CDU chairman.

Kiep, 75, insists he cannot remember where the latest million marks came from -- and thus assumed it belonged to the CDU.

Kiep is a one-time car salesman with wealth estimated at 100 million marks.

His story about the cash has been widely derided. "Are you playing us all for idiots?" asked Bild, Germany's influential best-selling daily, in giant letters atop its front page.

"How can anyone 'overlook' one million marks in their bank account?"

Franz Muentefering, campaign manager of the SPD: "I don't believe anyone can park a million marks in their bank account for years and not know whom it belongs to."

Several CDU politicians in parliament have called for Kiep's expulsion from the party.

After Kiep's 1999 allegations, Kohl was also pressured to admit that he had collected illegal campaign contributions.

The Kohl scandal sent the CDU tumbling in voter surveys, led to crushing defeats in regional elections and cost his handpicked successor as party chairman, Wolfgang Schaeuble, his job.

Kohl escapes fraud charges
March 2, 2001
Kohl to pay fine to end fraud inquiry
February 8, 2001
Kohl memoirs hit out at successors
November 19, 2000

CDU
German Federal Government

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