Stasi files on former Chancellor released

March 25, 2005
Tims



Berlin: Parts of a vast archive on Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, compiled by the East German secret police were released yesterday under tough restrictions.

Two Stasi files were made available in Berlin to researchers and journalists under orders not to publish them. References in the papers to Herr Kohl’s personal life were blacked out. The files focused largely on the politics West German politics.

The move comes after years of legal effort by Herr Kohl, 74, who led West Germany when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and supervised unification, to have the archives suppressed.

Observers have speculated that the files on wiretaps that the Stasi carried out from 1982-89 could include information about a party funding scandal in 2000 over which Herr Kohl’s career faltered. But Marianne Birthler, the head of the Stasi archives office, said that the documents are unlikely to contain great revelations. (AFP)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1540516,00.html