A former heavyweight of German politics has been accused of offering to act as an informant for the United States in 1980, leading to rebuttals from his children on Friday, reported dpa.
The late Franz Josef Strauss served as the longtime leader of Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and is seen as an icon in that southern state, where he was premier for many years until his death in 1988.
In the 1980 West German election, he was defeated as the centre-right bloc's candidate for chancellor by incumbent Social Democrat leader Helmut Schmidt.
Files from the US State Department showed that Strauss called Zbigniew Brzezinski, then national security adviser to US president Jimmy Carter, in March 1980.
"I don’t want to waste your time; I know how busy you are. I have one confidential question," Strauss told Brzezinski.
"I get different information about political events in France and Germany. Some of them might be of value to you. I would like to send them to you without any request except one: that my name be kept out."
Brzezinski reportedly accepted the offer and asked the Bavarian politician to send information to his secretary.
"I don’t want to denounce anybody but I do have a special network of information," Strauss added. "I don’t want to worry you, but some things worry me."
Strauss's daughter Monika Hohlmeier, a member of the European Parliament for the CSU, rejected the portrayal of her father as an "informant."
"The difference between the legitimate and important exchange of information between allies and informants is being deliberately misrepresented," she said in a joint statement with her brother Franz Georg Strauss, calling her father a great trans-Atlanticist.
- German politician
- US information
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
