Word: lambsdorffs
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...clocks in Bonn stood at 15 minutes to midnight when Economics Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff appeared at the office of Chancellor Helmut Kohl last week to tender his resignation. The outspoken Lambsdorff, 57, who had spent nearly seven years in the key Cabinet post, is expected soon to be formally charged by the Bonn public prosecutor's office with accepting $50,000 on behalf of the Free Democratic Party (F.D.P.) from the Flick Holding Co. in exchange for allowing the firm generous tax writeoffs. Lambsdorff, who will retain his seat in the Bundestag, insisted on his innocence. "The charges...
Kohl praised Lambsdorff, then moved quickly to replace him. The Chancellor's choice: Martin Bangemann, 49, a lawyer and maverick F.D.P. leader from Baden-Wurttemberg. Bangemann became available for the Economics portfolio after he lost his seat in the European Parliament in elections two weeks...
...Kohl, the problem comes at an awkward moment. In December, Economics Minister Count Otto Lambsdorff was charged with engineering a huge tax break for the Flick industrial conglomer ate in return for contributions to his Free Democrat Party. Kohl promised that Lambsdorff would resign if the case goes to trial. Even if Worner can prove his allegations, he too faces mounting pressure to resign. The loss of either minister would bring a shake-up in Kohl's moderate-right coalition government...
Pending a decision by the investigating judge to send the case to trial, the F.D.P. leadership decided last week that Lambsdorff should stay on as Economics Minister. But the opposition Social Democrats called for his resignation. Said Party Floor Leader Hans-Jochen Vogel: "An ordinary government employee would be suspended until the end of the proceedings." One of Kohl's concerns is that Lambsdorff's resignation would encourage hard-line Conservative Franz Josef Strauss, the maverick leader of the Christian Democrats' Bavarian-based sister party, to make a play for the Economics Minister's portfolio. Kohl...
Eulencamp's announcement, though expected, struck Bonn with explosive force. At issue is Lambsdorff s political survival, and with it the ability of the Kohl government to retain public confidence. The investigators charged that from 1975 to 1981 Friderichs and Lambsdorff had accepted nearly $200,000 from West Germany's largest privately owned industrial concern, the Düsseldorf-based Friedrich Flick Industrieverwaltung, in exchange for granting the firm generous tax exemptions. Lambsdorff, 56, is a respected member of the Free Democratic Party, the minority partner in Kohl's Christian Democrat-dominated government, and an architect...