Civic Association

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The Citizens' Association 1954 e. V. was a non-profit association founded in 1954 by the CDU and representatives of German industry , which played a central role in several party donation affairs . It was dissolved in 1990. The whereabouts of the property has not been clarified.

founding

The association was founded in 1954 by the CDU under Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and representatives of the German economy to finance political parties . According to the statutes , its purpose was to "promote the democratic state in the Federal Republic of Germany, in particular the defense and consolidation of the basic personal and political rights enshrined in the Basic Law ". In addition to Konrad Adenauer, the most important founding members included the banker Robert Pferdmenges , the lawyer and later ZDF administrative director Franz Huch, the first BDI president Fritz Berg , BDI managing director Gustav Stein and BDA board member Hans Constantin Paulssen . The founding seat was Cologne . With the establishment of the idea of ​​an initiative founded in 1949, the Pyrmont Agreement , with which the representatives of some interest groups wanted to support Ludwig Erhard's economic policy through an "election fund", followed.

background

The association had a political objective: the CDU and FDP were to receive donations, during the time of the social-liberal coalition, funds later flowed to the SPD, but in the 1960s an SPD government was to be prevented. In the early 1970s, the manager Eberhard von Brauchitsch described the principles of "political landscape conservation" as follows: "We saw this as a civic duty. The constitution states that the parties are the conveyor belt between the population and the legislature. And for that they needed money. "

Function as a "donation washing system"

The association made it possible for companies and associations to donate money to political parties anonymously and without tax. Since the association was recognized as a non-profit organization, donors from the business community were able to fully deduct the amounts from tax. The donors remained anonymous because the association circumvented the political party law , which obliges parties to account for the origin of their funds. The donations went mainly to the CDU , but also to the FDP and CSU and in the 1970s also to the SPD . Altogether it concerns an amount of up to 214 million DM between 1960 and 1980. Between 1952 and 1958 the CDU / CSU, FDP and DP received a total of seven million marks annually for current expenses (excluding election costs), divided according to their strength in parliament.

In practice, the tax-saving model worked as follows: The entrepreneurs deducted the money transferred to the Citizens' Association from their income tax , thus reducing the amount of their tax liability and allowing the state to participate in the donation via the tax waiver. An example: at the top level of progression (tax rate at that time 53%), a 1000-mark donation effectively cost the taxpayer only 470 marks.

In 1958, the donation practice became illegal for tax reasons after the SPD filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court. In 1958, the court ruled that the unlimited tax deductibility of donations to political parties was unconstitutional. There is a disproportionate preference for selected business-related parties. As a result of the progression, the wealthy citizens benefited more from the tax break than the poor, the court argued. That violates the principle of equality. Second, the parties with a larger number of affluent groups would benefit more from these donations than others, who mainly counted ordinary people among their voters, which violated the parties' equal opportunities.

As a result of this supreme court ruling, the flow of donations from the entrepreneurs stagnated. The Citizens' Association therefore devoted itself to "non-partisan educational work" from 1959 after the Bundestag had granted the three parties in parliament five million marks for "political educational work". In reality it was money in disguise for general party work. From 1950 to 1961, the Bundestag approved 5 million DM annually for political education work. 1962 to 1963 20 million DM and from 1964 38 million DM.

In addition, donations were still accepted. Thanks to the association, which is recognized as a non-profit organization, donors from the economy were able to continue to deduct their contributions in full from the tax, circumventing this judgment. However, the donors made themselves liable for tax evasion . For the persons acting on the side of the parties, there is criminal responsibility for aiding and abetting.

The seat of the association was moved from the SPD-ruled North Rhine-Westphalia to Mainz in the CDU-ruled Rhineland-Palatinate. The background was probably that Klaus Förster, head of the St. Augustin tax investigation office , had been on the trail of this and other "washing facilities" since the mid-1970s . The practice described became public in connection with the Flick affair, also through Förster's preliminary work. One day before the start of the trial in May 1980, the association was deleted from the Koblenz register of associations.

The Federal Constitutional Court declared this procedure illegal for the second time in a ruling in 1979.

Whereabouts of the property

To date, the whereabouts of some of the club's funds is unclear. There are assumptions that both the millions that emerged in Switzerland in connection with the donation affair of the Hesse CDU and Casimir Johannes Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg , as well as the funds allegedly handed over to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl by anonymous donors, originally came from the Civic Association come.

In addition to the association, other associations and foundations served the parties, e. B. the European management consultancy , as a "donation washing facility".

criticism

The news magazine Der Spiegel commented: "The continuity of actors and methods suggests that the SV funds have remained within the CDU's sphere of influence. It is possible that the Hesse millions, Casimir Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, are so excellent in the Switzerland increased, dined from it; or that the millions of the federal CDU that have now emerged have their sources there and that Kohl's anonymous donors simply bear the name 'Citizens' Association'. "

Documentation

  • Jean-Michel Meurice: Black Boxes , Documentary, ARTE France, Maha and Anthracite (2008 - 70 '), Jean-Michel Meurice, France 2008
  • Bimbes - Helmut Kohl's black registers . The first. Retrieved April 6, 2019.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Editor: The CDU's donation washing system. In: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ . Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 11, 2010, accessed on October 5, 2019 (German).
  2. ^ Draft of a regulation on the deduction of donations for the promotion of state political purposes ; Agenda item SV Köln in the minutes of the cabinet meeting of July 11, 1956 (from the holdings of the Federal Archives )
  3. ↑ Ossip K. Flechtheim : Unions and party financing , in: trade union monthly magazines , issue 10/1959, pp. 583-586, here p. 584 (PDF; 41 kB); Library of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Ulrich Dübber: The parties - held out by the state? In: https://www.zeit.de . Die Zeit, November 6, 1964, accessed on October 5, 2019 (German).
  5. ↑ a b Stephan Zimmermann: The great donation scandals of the Federal Republic. In: MDR. www.mdr.de/, November 15, 2018, accessed on October 5, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ BVerfG, judgment of July 24, 1958, Az. 2 BvF 1/57, BVerfGE 8, 51 - 1st party donation judgment.
  7. ↑ a b c What was the Citizens' Association - a short chronology on tagesspiegel.de
  8. ↑ BVerfG, judgment of July 24, 1979, Az. 2 BvF 1/78, BVerfGE 52, 63 - 2nd party donation judgment.
  9. ↑ Civic association, the CDU's donation washing facility on sueddeutsche.de.