CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Influence Markets 75
and the highest-profile scandals have revolved around political fundraising
(Seibel, 1997: 86; Alemann, 2002). These are often cross-party affairs:
sharing out benefits, both legitimate and otherwise, among parties in
proportion to their strength is reflected in longstanding practices known
as Proporz. AttheLand and municipal levels Proporz is an unwritten law,
andeveninthemostsignificantscandalatthefederallevel–theFlickaffair–
all major parties except the Greens were cut in on the spoils. Some of
these characteristics can be seen in a few of the major scandals in the
Federal Republic (the following cases draw upon Glees, 1987; Glees,
1988; Seibel, 1997: 87–90; Alemann, 2002).
Federal purchases of armored vehicles in the 1950s, and of Lockheed
fighter bombers in the 1960s, were facilitated by Otto Benz, a center-right
Bundestag (lower house) member linked both to the auto manufacturer
and to the Minister of Defense. He paid significant sums for political
influence, in the form of unusually large party contributions rather than
bribes. Both vehicles and aircraft turned out to be faulty, and the latter
eventually figured in the international Lockheed scandal of the 1970s.
In the mid-1970s the Flick industrial combine sold a major block of
shares in Daimler-Benz, creating a potential tax obligation of DM1
billion or more. Flick sought a special tax exemption that could legally
be given if funds were reinvested in beneficial ways. Two FDP Ministers
of the Economy, Hans Friedrichs and his successor, Graf Lambsdorff,
granted the exemption; later it emerged that they had received large
payments from Flick managing director Eberhard von Brauchitsch.
Those funds were part of a much larger scheme, totaling perhaps
DM25 million, of contributions to the three big parties and their leaders.
While the Flick scandal hastened the fall of the SPD/FDP coalition
government in the early 1980s, legal repercussions were few: cases against
SPD president Willy Brandt and CDU/CSU president Helmut Kohl
(former and future Chancellors, respectively) were dropped. Von
Brauchitsch, Friedrichs and Lambsdorff were convicted only on tax
offenses, and Lambsdorff eventually served as FDP president into the
early 1990s.
In 1999 a former CDU treasurer was arrested on charges of receiving
DM1 million from a defense contractor, Thyssen-Henschel, which had
sought to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia at the time of the first Gulf War.
Thyssen claimed the funds were a party donation; the CDU denied receiving
the cash. Subsequent investigations revealed an extensive network of
secret party accounts financed by inflated prices charged to the Saudis.
CDU parliamentary Secretary of Defense Agnes Hürland-Büning was paid
several million DM as a consultant to Thyssen after leaving office. She also
helped the Kohl government arrange a deal between Thyssen and French