The CDU wasn’t quite kaput, but its standing in the polls sank to 29 percent, the lowest ever. Two days after Kohl quit, the treasurer of the CDU’s parliamentary contingent, Wolfgang Hullen, hanged himself at his home in Berlin; the police promptly broadened their investigation into alleged funding abuses to include Hullen. Investigators were getting nowhere with Kohl. He admitted accepting more than $1 million in secret donations to his party during the 1990s, which appears to be illegal. But he refused to name the donors, as required by law.
Kohl said he did nothing wrong, because the contributions bought no influence and he spent none of the money on himself. “I have always tried to do my duty,” he said. But if he is convicted of illegal fund-raising, Kohl could go to prison. In any case, Germans will almost certainly want to revise their top-10 list.
