Karlheinz Schreiber turns 90
Key figure in the CDU donations affair has no regrets
March 25, 2024, 7:35 a.m
In the 1990s, Karlheinz Schreiber triggered the CDU donation affair surrounding Helmut Kohl with monetary payments. Years of investigations and criminal proceedings follow. Schreiber is repeatedly in prison. Now the former gun lobbyist turns 90.
It was Karlheinz Schreiber’s desk calendar that caused the Federal Republic to tremble a quarter of a century ago: Augsburg tax investigators discovered entries from the arms lobbyist that led to the CDU party donation scandal. The writer, who lives in Kaufering, Bavaria, is now 90 years old – his prison term was ended prematurely more than ten years ago because he was considered to be in poor health.
The consequences of the scandal triggered by Schreiber were massive: Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl lost the honorary chairmanship of the CDU, Wolfgang Schäuble lost the chairmanship of the CDU and the Union parliamentary group, and the former Defense State Secretary Ludwig-Holger Pfahls from the CSU went to prison. When the writer, born on March 25, 1934, was asked by the “Bild” newspaper a few weeks ago whether he regretted anything in his life, he said, despite the shock he caused: “No, absolutely nothing.” He has every reason to be grateful. “I have had an incredibly fulfilling life with many ups and downs – I am satisfied.”
Self-disclosure and escape to Canada
However, the former friend of the former Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss, who was expelled from the CSU, was on the run for many years and was repeatedly in prison. This was triggered by a voluntary disclosure in 1995, with which he wanted to forestall a report from a business partner for tax offenses. Schreiber acted as a lobbyist for a tank purchase by Saudi Arabia, and of the around 230 million euros that flowed, almost half was available for commissions. While Schreiber initially fled to Switzerland after a house search in 1995 and from there was able to flee to Canada in 1999 thanks to his second citizenship as a Canadian, tax officials decoded Schreiber’s desk calendar, in which he had documented money payments and their recipients using codes.
There was, for example, a reference to a payment to the then CDU treasurer Walther Leisler Kiep, to whom Schreiber had handed over one million marks in cash in a briefcase in Switzerland. Kiep was therefore briefly arrested – he confessed that the money was for the CDU. Shortly afterwards, the CDU admitted a slush fund system that had been run under its long-time chairman Kohl. Kohl then had to give up the CDU honorary chairmanship. Schreiber’s 100,000-mark donation became even more explosive because it affected the then CDU leader Schäuble. Schäuble and the then CDU treasurer Brigitte Baumeister contradicted each other regarding the circumstances of the money handover.
Schreiber extradited to Germany in 2009
Finally, Schäuble, who later described himself as the victim of an intrigue, vacated his top positions at the beginning of 2000 – Angela Merkel became CDU leader. From Canada, Schreiber accompanied the events in Germany with ever new hints about supposedly further explosive knowledge. A Bundestag investigative committee even traveled to Canada in 2001 to interrogate Schreiber – but that brought little apart from vague hints. It has never been proven that Schreiber used his money to influence political decisions. He did pay the former State Secretary Pfahls the equivalent of almost 1.9 million euros in bribes relating to the tank business. But in the Pfahls trial, both Kohl and former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher testified that the tank deal was decided at the request of the United States.
Schreiber himself was extradited from Canada in 2009 after a years-long legal battle. In the following trials in Augsburg he was only prosecuted for tax evasion; allegations of bribery were time-barred. Schreiber spent less than three years in prison in Germany. He was released early in 2012 because he suffered a heart attack while in custody. He is now cared for by his second wife Barbara, to whom he has been married for 40 years. The man who caused the entire republic to be in a state of excitement now needs absolute calm, as he told “Bild”.