Court lifts ban on Kohl Stasi files

[Kellanved]

BERLIN - A Berlin court ruled Wednesday there was no legal bar to public officials disclosing the contents of a communist secret-police dossier on former chancellor Helmut Kohl. However the papers were to stay sealed while Kohl's lawyer pursued an appeal in higher courts.

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Kohl, 73, who oversaw the 1990 reunification of Germany but lost the 1998 general election, was always sparing in his disclosures about both his political work and his private life.
He notably refused to disclose the identity of a 1993 donor to a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) slush fund, saying he was "honour bound" to secrecy. The public gained a brief glimpse of private turmoil when his wife, Hannelore, committed suicide in July 2001.

Germany has had the most liberal policy of any European country inheriting communist secret-police files: it has opted for nearly full disclosure, uncovering myriad spies and informers. Kohl, like every German, was entitled to read the dossier the Stasi kept on him.

In March 2002, Kohl won a court order sealing the dossier. Later in the year, the German parliament amended the law on the Stasi archives, reinstating academic access to the Stasi files dealing with public figures. Kohl's party opposed that change.
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