By Johannes Leithäuser

BERLIN. The wholesale destruction of files and computer data inside the Chancellery during former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's days in office cannot be credibly explained as simple negligence, but was the result of possibly illegal "targeted actions," a special investigator testified on Wednesday.

Burkhard Hirsch made the comments during the presentation of his report to a select parliamentary committee of investigation. The committee is looking into alleged financial improprieties related to the Christian Democratic Union slush-fund scandal and allegations of possible corruption in the Kohl government.

The same committee will hear testimony from Mr. Kohl this Thursday.

Mr. Hirsch, a former vice president of the Bundestag, spent several months intensively researching the record system inside the Chancellery. He told the committee that two-thirds of the electronic data in Chancellery computers was erased in the days before Mr. Kohl left power in late 1998, an amount of information equivalent to some 1.2 million pieces of paper.

"This massive erasure of data lacked any legal basis," he said.

Mr. Hirsch, a Free Democrat appointed by the current head of the Chancellery, Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrats, also prepared a written report. It was immediately sent to the public prosecutor's office in Bonn, which had suspended its investigations of suspected "breach of official custody" against persons unknown until the special investigator had been heard.

Mr. Steinmeier, meanwhile, has initiated preliminary disciplinary inquiries into the actions of individual Chancellery staff members identified by Mr. Hirsch as having acted improperly.

German law provides for large fines and prison sentences of up to two years for public officials found guilty of the illegal destruction of files or other public records.

The government spokesman, Uwe-Karsten Heye, declined to specify the number of preliminary investigations begun, nor the persons involved. But he said that under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder the Chancellery had changed guidelines for access to records, and that a group had been set up to work out guidelines governing the control of information when there is a change of government.

Mr. Hirsch said computer experts had been able to retrieve some of the lost information. He added that one file shows that a letter from four CDU state premiers -- and supported by the Social Democratic premier of Brandenburg, Manfred Stolpe -- calling on the government not to investigate the privatization of assets in the former East Germany was actually prepared in the Chancellery.

If so, this could be highly embarrassing for the Social Democrat.

Mr. Hirsch told the committee that under Mr. Kohl, the Chancellery had had a difficult relationship with the Bundestag, and particularly opposition members. Other files, though not destroyed, were manipulated or withheld from the new government, he said, describing this as an abuse of a huge bureaucratic structure funded by taxpayers.

"The Chancellery is not the private property of any political direction," he said. "The Chancellery is not some french fry stand. It helps mold a country's reputation."

According to the Hirsch report, files pertaining to the privatization of the Leuna refinery in eastern Germany, which has been linked to the possible payment of bribes, are not the only ones missing. Mr. Hirsch told the committee that in some other privatization cases which interested a previous Bundestag committee, records could no longer be found.

Mr. Hirsch said the head of the Chancellery's technical department had told him that he had ordered the erasures because the computer's memory had contained texts, drafts and concepts that were considered not worth saving. Mr. Hirsch reported that this department head had said the essential content had been recorded on paper in the files. The Social Democrats' spokesman on the select committee, Frank Hofmann, spoke of a "government crime" coming to light. He said the Kohl-era Chancellery had acted no differently than the headquarters of East Germany's Ministry for State Security, the Stasi, after the fall of communism.

Hans-Christian Ströbele, a committee member representing Alliance 90/the Greens, said he was "stunned" by the report. He and Mr. Hofmann both said that they intended to grille Mr. Kohl about the missing files.

The CDU committee chairman, Andreas Schmidt, retorted that Mr. Hirsch's report contained no evidence that there had been any politically motivated decision to destroy files during the Kohl era.
Jun. 28, 2000