The CDU donations scandal was a
political scandal
In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, Political party, party officials and Lobbying, lobbyists can be accused of various ...
resulting from the illegal forms of
party financing used by the German
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) during the 1990s. These included accepting hidden donations, the non-disclosure of cash donations, the maintenance of secret bank accounts, and illegal
wire transfers to and from foreign banks.
The scandal was uncovered in late 1999 and remained the dominant subject of political discussion and news coverage in Germany for several months. The ''
Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache'' selected the term ''Schwarzgeldaffäre'' (
literally, "black money affair" i.e. "illegal earnings scandal") as
German Word of the Year 2000.
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...
s conducted by the
Allensbach Institute suggest that in November 1999 (before the scandal became known), the CDU was expected to receive around 45 percent of the popular vote in a hypothetical German federal election. By February 2000, this value had plummeted down to 31 percent.
German opinion polls from 1998 to 2002 on the federal level
conducted by the Allensbach Institute, collected by wahlrecht.de
As a consequence, two of the leading CDU figures of the 1980s and 1990s, Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany and governed the ''Federal Republic'' from 1982 to 1998. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to ...
and Wolfgang Schäuble lost their political influence, with Angela Merkel and Roland Koch emerging as the most powerful German conservative politicians.
Timeline
1999
2000
Later events
See also
* Politics of Germany
* Flick affair, a similar scandal in the 1980s
*Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as chancellor of Germany and governed the ''Federal Republic'' from 1982 to 1998. He was leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to ...
* Angela Merkel
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:CDU donations scandal (1999)
1999 in Germany
Political scandals in Germany
Helmut Kohl