In 1961, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that Franz Josef Strauss, minister of defense in Konrad Adenauer's cabinet, had advised his American colleague, Thomas Gates, to contract the company Fibag (Finanzbau Aktiengesellschaft) for construction of several thousand apartments for the American military in Germany. He was accused of corruption, because Hans Kapfinger, a friend of Strauss', was a share holder of the company. After a motion by the SPD a parliamentary commission was formed in order to investigate the accusations. In 1962, this commission came to the decision that Strauss was not guilty of misconduct, which was criticized heavily by the FDP, partner of the CDU/CSU coalition in the government. The Fibag was not contracted for building apartments for the American military.
The Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. The CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), operates in the other fifteen states of Germany. It differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative in social matters. The CSU is considered an effective successor of the Weimar-era Catholic Bavarian People's Party (BVP).
The Spiegel affair of 1962 was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in Der Spiegel, West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense forces.
Rudolf Karl Augstein was one of the most influential German journalists, founder and part-owner of Der Spiegel magazine.
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 840,000 copies, it is the largest such publication in Europe.
Franz Josef Strauss was a German politician. He was the long-time chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) from 1961 until 1988, member of the federal cabinet in different positions between 1953 and 1969 and minister-president of the state of Bavaria from 1978 until 1988. Strauss is also credited as a co-founder of European aerospace conglomerate Airbus.
Max Streibl was a German politician of the CSU party and the eighth Minister President of Bavaria.
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 17 September 1961 to elect the members of the fourth Bundestag. CDU/CSU remained the largest faction, while the Social Democratic Party narrowly became the largest individual party in the Bundestag, winning 203 of the 521 seats.
The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed a series of bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft.
The Flick Affair was a West German political scandal of the early 1980s relating to donations by the Flick company, a major German conglomerate, to various political parties, according to Flick manager Eberhard von Brauchitsch, "for the cultivation of the political landscape". Otto Graf Lambsdorff, the federal minister for economic affairs, was forced to resign in 1984 after being accused of accepting bribes from CEO Friedrich Karl Flick.
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen is a German politician and the President of the European Commission since 1 December 2019. She served in the federal government of Germany from 2005 to 2019 as the longest-serving member of Angela Merkel's cabinet. She is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU counterpart, the European People's Party (EPP).
Franz Josef Jung is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He became Federal Minister of Defence in the Grand coalition cabinet of Angela Merkel on 22 November 2005. In October 2009 he became Minister of Labour and Social Affairs but resigned a month later.
Le Cercle is a secretive, invitation-only foreign policy forum. Its focus has been opposing Communism and, in the 1970s and 1980s, supporting apartheid when the group had intimate ties with and funding from South Africa. The group was described by British Conservative MP Alan Clark as "an Atlanticist society of right-wing dignitaries".
Siegfried Balke was a German politician (CSU).
Friedrich Albert Foertsch was a German general serving during World War II and from 1961 to 1963 the second Inspector General of the Bundeswehr.
The 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident, occurring on 14 September 1961, was an incident during the Cold War, in which two Republic F-84F Thunderstreak fighter-bombers of JaBoG 32 of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) crossed into East German airspace because of a navigational error, before landing at Berlin Tegel Airport. The two planes successfully evaded a large number of Soviet fighter planes by finding cover in a heavy layer of clouds, but also by the actions of an airman at the United States Air Force air route traffic control center at Berlin Tempelhof Airport who ordered the planes on to Berlin rather than forcing them to turn around and face the pursuing fighter planes. The event came at a historically difficult time in relations between the two Germanies. Only a month before, the Berlin Wall had been built, which completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. It also came three days before the West German federal election, held on 17 September 1961.
Altenstadt Air Base is located approximately 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi) northeast of the Upper Bavarian municipality of Altenstadt, Bavaria, Germany. The air base is operated by the German Army Aviation Corps.
Albert Schnez was an officer in three successive German armies: the Reichswehr, the Wehrmacht, and finally the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the modern Federal Republic of Germany. He was involved in the debate on the internal leadership of the newly formed Bundeswehr and was close to the German defense minister, Franz Josef Strauss. Schnez served from 1968 to 1971 with the rank of lieutenant-general (Generalleutnant) as the Inspector of the Army.
Walther Gottlieb Louis Leisler Kiep was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was a member of the Bundestag between 1965 and 1976 and again from 1980 to 1982. After switching to state-level politics, he served as minister of economy (1976–77) and minister of finance (1976–80) in Lower Saxony under Ernst Albrecht. In 1982, Kiep was the leading candidate for the CDU in two successive state elections in Hamburg, losing both to incumbent Klaus von Dohnányi. From 1971 until 1992, he was treasurer of his party at the federal level. In this position, Kiep installed a system of unreported income accounts, leading to the CDU donations scandal in 1999.
The fourth Adenauer cabinet was formed by incumbent Chancellor Konrad Adenauer after the 1961 federal election. The cabinet was sworn in on 14 November 1961.
The fifth Adenauer cabinet was formed by incumbent Chancellor Konrad Adenauer shortly after the previous Adenauer IV cabinet fell apart over the Spiegel affair. The forced resignation of Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauss was required to gain back the FDP's support for the cabinet.
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