Ex-Finance Official Links Kohl to Firing
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BERLIN — Ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl was involved in the late 1980s in firing a party official who refused to sign a questionable financial report, the former official Thursday told Parliament investigators probing a slush-fund scandal involving the Christian Democratic Union.
Ruediger May, former head of the party’s financial office, said that in 1989 he had questioned a $400,000 charge for postal fees for a letter Kohl sent to all party members.
May said he was given a check from an account he didn’t know about to cover the charge and listed the money under “special revenue.” He said he received the check from Horst Weyrauch--the party’s longtime financial advisor and a key figure in the scandal.
When he asked where the money came from, he said he was told: “You don’t have to know everything.”
May said he later refused to sign the party’s financial report and sent a note to party leaders telling what had happened. He was fired a short time later. He said he was told that Kohl had ordered him fired.
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