The “Rule of Nepotism and Corruption”?
Aspects of the present “authoritarian
State” in Germany
In its MITTAGSECHO feature,
broadcast by WDR 5 radio, “excerpts from the international press” are usually
presented to the listener. On Saturday, October 23, 2010, comments of AUSTRIAN
and SWISS daily newspapers that focused on the events in Stuttgart this
month were quoted. One of the papers that was quoted squarely
blamed “the authoritarian state” in Germany (“der autoritaere Staat”) for
what had happened. There was a sharp remark that what the politicians attempted
to sell the public as a high speed train infrastructure project was above
all “a property speculation project” (“ein Grundstuecksspekulationsgeschaeft”).
And on top of it, the whole thing smelled of “Filz” seemingly involving
big business people and people that belong to the “classe politique” in
Germany.(1)
The term “Filz”(a substantive literally
meaning “felt”) is customarily employed in Austria, Switzerland,
Germany for ties between politicians and (usually, big) business that are
too close and too shady to be still considered proper. The verb “verfilzen”
means “to become felted” or “to become matted.” And in a metaphorical sense,
that means exactly an entanglement, ties that are so close that you
cannot tell the one from the other: influential and high-ranking politicians
(or their spouses or other close relatives) are clandestinely (rather than
openly) involved in business deals as partners of capitalists interested
in a certain project, and these business people are pulling the strings,
instrumentalizing their close connection to said politicians (for instance,
in order to get state-contracts, or state-subsidies, or because they hope
to profit from “privatizations” etc.), thus playing a political game in
tandem with their partners, the professional politicians. The dictionary
gives the following explanation of the term “Filzokratie”: “nepotism and
corruption.”
The term should of course be explained
in this way: “the rule respectively overpowering might of corruption and
nepotism”. After all, the second semantic component of “Filzokratie” (“-kratie”;
Engl., -cracy – as in democracy, aristocracy, etc.) means “rule,
domination, etc.”
Perhaps it becomes more and more
apparent why “les braves citoyen” (the sober, ordinary citizens) who faced
a shocking “repression policière” in Stuttgart on Sept. 30,
2010 – as another paper poignantly noted this month (2)
– are getting angry and choose to demand that the state government
in Stuttgart should step back and open the way to early elections.(3)
At the moment, the conservative
parties are losing support as rapidly as the Social Democrats, a party
that entirely disillusioned millions among its backers when the Schroeder
administration pushed through the same neo-liberal and anti-social reforms
that Sarkozy tries to put in effect at the moment, against much grass-roots
resistance, in France. As the Schroeder cabinet was facing resistance from
a minority of mildly left-wing Social Democratic members of parliament
at the time, the “reforms” were only possible thanks to a tacit,
informal but, de-facto, very effective coalition with the Christian Democrats
of Ms. Merkel. Small wonder that Social Democratic voters felt betrayed.
Today, the Merkel administration
takes on the Christian Democratic electorate head on and their voters desert
it, right now – especially in the South West.
While the Democratic Left profits
only modestly at the moment, it is the Green Party which can expect enormous
gains at the polls. If they don’t want to break the trust that many voters
seem to put in them, they must oppose – and clearly stay away from
– the usually practices presently inscribed in German politics:
- MAKING PROMISES BEFORE ELECTIONS,
AND THEN BREAKING THEM ONCE IN OFFICE…
-PRIVILEGING POLITICS THAT DEPEND
ON SECRECY AND ON DECISIONS REACHED BY THE POLITICAL “BIG SHOT” BEHIND
CLOSED DOORS, IN THE USUAL BACK-ROOMS....
- And, last not least, MISTAKING
“AN OPEN EAR” FOR THE DESIRES AND WISHES OF BIG INDUSTRY AND THE FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS FOR “REALISM". (4)
It was “lobbyism”, after all,
that made the unforgettable Mr. Schreiber so famous, the man whose extradition
by Canada was sought for so many years. And this because of his involvement
in illicit arms deals - one of them involving the Thyssen Corp.,
the Kohl administration, and the Saudi monarchy.(5)
In the "Saudi" case alone, bribes amounting to some 200 million marks (about
100 million euros) were paid that the governing Christian Democratic party
of Mr. Kohl was immediately suspected to have profited from...
Likewise, the public has not forgotten
Mr.Pfahls,(6)
a contact of Mr Schreiber. At the time of the Saudi deal, he was undersecretary
of defense, thus a trusted, high-ranking official of the government
under former chancellor Helmut Kohl. Mr. Pfahls had to stay in hiding in
Taiwan and elsewhere for years on end. He got away with whatever it was
(for that was never wholly clarified, it seems), remaining almost scot-free.
When he was finally sentenced in 2005 to merely two years and three months
in prison, he was released from jail the following months.(7)
The fact that Mr Pfahls was convicted
by the German court of "passive corruption" (accepting a moderate sum,
that paid for his lavish life as a fugitive) and of tax evasion (he didn't
pay taxes on his small part of the enormous "kickback") did not exactly
clarify what happened with those 130 million euros that he and a certain
Mr. Holzer moved back and worth between clandestine accounts in the late
1980s and the 1990s, according to the investigation conducted by a Swiss
judge, Mr. Bertossa, who was then investigating the Leuna case.(8)
Money for whom, if not for the two of them?
Incidentally Mr. Pfahl's partner
at the time, Mr.Holzer, was a key figure in the Leuna scandal. In this
case, again huge bribes (according to one source 330 million francs) were
paid. This time by the French state-owned oil multi ELF AQUITAINE when
it sought to acquire the large state-owned Leuna refinery in the
former GDR. An industrial complex that was offered by the Kohl administration
to interested investors. Mr. Alfred Sirven, "second in command" of the
French firm that succeeded to acquire the publicly owned LEUNA refinery
complex, was later on sentenced in France for defrauding the French state
by overseeing the payment of these enormous sums, channeled to unknown
destinations as bribes that would facilitate acquisition of LEUNA by ELF
AQUITAINE.
At the time when Mr. Holzer was
involved in the transfer of ELF AQUITAINE bribes (a fact that later on
led to his indictment and condemnation in France), he made at least two
payments involving more than 5 million marks to bank accounts of Mr. Pfahls
in Luxembourg.
It was Mr. Kohl who personally
sheltered Mr. Pfahls in the case of the illicit Saudi arms deal; which
perhaps explains the mild sentence. Both the French judge in charge of
the Leuna inquiry, Ms. Joly, and a Geneva-based Swiss judge exploring shady
movements of huge sums in the context of the Leuna deal, Mr. Bertossa,
did not fail to state that in their opinion the German judicial system
never seriously explored the Leuna case (and thus Mr.Pfahl's and/or Mr.
Kohl's involvement in it).(9)
When a parliamentary committee
investigated the LEUNA affair in Germany, Burkhard Hirsch, a liberal former
minister of the interior (belonging to the FDP, a coalition partner of
Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats) found out that many hard discs of computers
used by the out-going Kohl administration had been illegally (or “accidentally”)
wiped clean and content-less and that many paper documents of the
out-going government, destined for the federal archives, had inexplicably
vanished.
Faced with this parliamentary investigation,
the former head of government, Mr. Kohl either resorted to pleading amnesia
or, in other cases, to a curious defence, i.e. that he had given his “word
as a gentleman” (sein Ehrenwort) to keep quiet about certain things.
The social democrats failed to
subpoena Mr. Kohl, as they could have done. Were they afraid that the political
opponents would uncover the dirty linnen of certain social democratic big-shots
if the probe Mr. Kohl was subjected to was going to far and the probing,
in other words, was too deep?
These things do not go unnoticed
by ALL citizens, and small wonder that today, made sensitive by unresolved
affairs in the past, critical persons in the German South West regard
the Stuttgart 21 project with careful eyes. If the proponents of the project
have their way, billions of euros in subsidies will be shouldered by the
tax-payer: some estimates give 8 to 10 billion euros as the projected cost
of the entire high-speed train construction while the more conservative
estimates imply that construction of the underground central station and
the railroad tunnels in Stuttgart will cost about 4.5 billion euros, and
the new line outside Stuttgart to Ulm some 2.9 billion. In exchange, the
areas now occupied by above ground tracks, the present central station,
and the large public park will be privately marketed, and this very profitably,
as prime sites in downtown Stuttgart will be produced... Private gain from
property speculation will not be possible, however, if the heavily subsidized
high-speed train line and the subsidized underground central station aren’t
realized. Both the Federal Government and the state government of Baden-Wurttemberg
have already consented to pay such subsidies. And how strange – top politicians,
among them a minister of the environment in the state government, as well
as people close to them (for instance the spouse, until recently, of what
was until recently the head of the state government) were trustees of an
“urbanistic” foundation chaired by the boss of a property corporation that
stands to profit from the project now questioned by the critical public.
Do “Leuna affairs” recur again and
again, under ever-changing names?
Those who see their project threatened
are, understandably, angry and nervous. Perhaps this explains the readiness
to use the police in such manner as the international press described,
against children, seniors, respected members of the – until recently –
conservative-leaning middle-class, and against, of course, the trade-unionists
and ecologists and college students who do not fail to oppose mis-government
when necessary. One has nothing to add when centrist papers abroad speak
of “repression against brave citizens” and of a “class politique”
that brought to light the ugly face of an “authoritarian state”…
Today, it is an open question whether
the present elan and the aware engagement of citizens interested in
public affairs (the res publica, as the Romans called it) will give way
again to apathy, should we not succeed – thanks to a broad coalition of
political tendencies – to achieve a real and solid influence of the people
in all affairs that concern them. And therefore, it is more necessary than
ever before to achieve participative democracy. A situation where people
fall back into their arm chair, choosing to believe that their efforts
were in vain and that “we can’t influence anything”, is dangerous in any
democracy. In such a situation, anger and frustrations might make too many
citizens inclined to look for a strongman.(10)
This is already true of 25 per cent of all adult Germans, according to
certain surveys. Those 75 per cent who at present continue to believe in
– and support – democracy, deserve better and more than what the slick
and clever, in the “classe politique” are prepared to give them: SOOTHING
WORDS, MANIPULATION, DISINFORMATION.
If the “CLASSE POLITIQUE” IN GERMANY,
at least those responsible for the police repression against brave citizens,
continue to believe that the present disgust, dissent, and the sense of
being betrayed by elected personnel, so-called “servants of the people,”
is simply due to “A PROBLEM OF COMMUNICATION”, of “INSUFFICIENTLY COMMUNOICATING
THEIR” [QUESTIONABLE, PROBABLY SELFISH AND, as the international
press suspects, OFTEN IMPROPER] “INTENTIONS”, they are wrong. And they’ll
find out they are wrong, for sure.
- kw, jc, aw
Notes
(1) The quotations
included at the beginning of this article are from the “Mittagsecho” feature
broadcast by WDR 5 and by NDR radio. A podcast is available for a limited
time. Check: http://www.wdr5.de/sendungen/mittagsecho/d/23.10.2010-13.05.htm
(2) Cf. « Répression
policière contre de "braves citoyens" » [Police repression
against good citizens], the
French summary of an article published
by the German language-edition of the Financial Times, in:
http://www.presseurop.eu/fr/content/news-brief-cover/350821-repression-policiere-contre-de-braves-citoyens
(3) Cf. the Stuttgarter Appell
(
http://stuttgarterappell.de).
-
In the meantime, even the party-chairman of the Social Democratic Party,
Mr. S. Gabriel, is saying in public that instruments of participative democracy
like the "Volksbegehren" (petition for a referendum) are necessary in order
to avoid a "widening gap between established politics [i.e. the classe
politique] and the population." (WDR5 radio news, Oct. 24, 2010).
(4) It is a widely known
fact by now that "experts" from financial institutions were recently working
inside a ministry of the German government, drafting the provisions that
are meant to regulate the banking sector. - Likewise, experts and
lobbyists of insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations etc. have
been allowed to influence, in similar fashion, the drafting of legislation
that directly concerns them. Members of parliament have complained that
in various instances they have received the text of acts comprising at
times a hundred pages or more, on the day they are supposed to vote on
them. The discipline expected from them as party members makes them approve
acts they haven't even read. This leads certain critics to conclude
that parliamentary initiative and control are largely inexistent, while
ministerial bureaucracies (under the guidance of the important figures
in the government and the ruling party or parties) cooperate closely with
Capital, in order to create the laws and regulations deemed necessary by
the latter. Private business, which is so successful in placing trusted
persons in ministeries and in top positions within political parties,
reciprocates by employing top political personnel once they quit as public
servants.
(5) It was only in early
2010, that Mr. Schreiber was compelled to stand trial in Germany. Questioned
ten years earlier, at a time when the prosecution had just started proceedings
against Mr. Schreiber, the honorable Mr. Schaeuble, then party-chairman
of the Christian Democrats (and at present minister of economic affairs
in the Merkel administration!), couldn't remember any details of a meeting
with Mr. Schreiber, concerning a certain sum that Mr. Schreiber said (or
is said) to have passed on to him. Amnesia is a comfortable defense for
top politicians, it seems. Mr. Kohl, facing an investigating parliamentary
committee in the context of the scandalous Leuna case, suffered from it,
too.
(6) Mr Pfahls (born
1942), a graduate of a law school, was president of the "Service for the
protection of the constitution" (the internal secret service) and later
on, an undersecretary in the Ministry of Defense, responsible for overseeing
weapons exports. He then joined the Daimler-Benz Corporation, a German
MNC which is also a major arms manufacturer. The revolving door between
top posts in government and top jobs in private industry and financial
institutions apparently is not only typical of the situation in the U.S.;
we discover it in Europe, as well.
(7) Upon his return to Germany,
Mr. Pfahls was sentenced to two years and 3 months in prison in August
2005 and released from prison in September 2005.
(8) The prosecution in Geneva
(Switzerland) stated that Mr. Holzer und Mr. Pfahls moved those 130 million
euros back and forth between accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, Antigua and Panama, Paul Perraudin; the judge entrusted with
the respective investigation, decribed this as making no sense economically
and therefore indicative of money laundering activities („unsinnige wirtschaftliche
Struktur, die einen konkreten Verdacht der Geldwäscherei begründet“).
(9) The following comment
by Mr. Bertossa, the Swiss judge, in the German weekly, DER SPIEGEL, is
very revealing: "Leuna was privatized by the German authorities. The deal
has lead to ... payments by Elf Aquitaine that were not justified. And
I take note that exactly the official files concerning the Leuna deal have
disappeared in the chancellor's office. A democratic prosecutor of crimes
must act in such a case. Otherwise the only possible conclusion to be drawn
is that certain crimes, such as corruption, are not persecuted in Germany.
In that case, it would be consequent to delete the respective paragraphs
in criminal law." (Der Spiegel 30/2001, p.66)
(10) The presence of dangerous
authoritarian tendencies in Germany cannot be denied. At present, certain
politicians inside three out of the four largest parties are doing whatever
they can to kindle xenophobic tendencies. The "Other" as scapegoat - it
was already a recipe dear to Goebbels and Hitler. Simultaneously, politicians
inside the Christian Democratic party, including Mr. Schaeuble, and
certain legal "experts in contitutional law" are again fanning a debate
culminating in the conclusion that the constitution should be changed in
order to make possible the deployment of the German armed forces inside
Germany in peacetime. Against whom? People like the protesters in Stuttgart?
What are such politicians afraid of? Do they fear the looming, peaceful
and democratic self-empowerment of ever-larger, awake parts of the
population that is at present disempowered by a "classe politique" - that
is to say, by a "caste" (or "tangle" of competing and co-operating, closely
networked groups) decisive parts of which are again and again discovered
to be venal? Are they afraid that people are fed up with a "Republik der
Konzerne": a republic stolen by MNCs, banks, in short, big business?
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