Another Christian Democrat leader going through this metamorphosis is Angela Merkel, the party’s general secretary, groomed for years by Mr Kohl and once described by him as “my spiritual daughter”.Ms Merkel is now Mr Kohl’s bitterest enemy. In yesterday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine, she launched an attack on her former mentor. “Kohl’s acknowledged actions have caused damage to the party,” she wrote. “It’s up to us to take our future into our own hands.”A parliamentary hearing into Mr Kohl’s affairs has begun, but it is not likely to question the former chancellor until next year.

The former chancellor has said he cannot reveal the donors because he had promised them that he would not squeal.After much oblique comment thrown in their honorary chairman’s direction over the past days, the party’s patience snapped yesterday, instructing him directly to name the donors. “There is no alternative.”Mr Schauble was for many years Mr Kohl’s closest friend and loyal deputy, but has evidently now decided not to go down with his former boss. “This is absolutely necessary to prevent further damage to the party,” Mr Schauble said. After the meeting, Wolfgang Schauble, the party’s chairman, said that Mr Kohl’s banking transactions in the 1990s could not be followed through existing files.Mr Schauble was especially keen to discover who had given Mr Kohl, as he admitted, up to DM3m (pounds 1m) in cash. The latest development strains relations between the Christian Democrats and their “honorary chairman” to breaking point, and raises the prospect that this century’s longest-reigning German leader might be forced out of his party and parliament.
The statement demanding Mr Kohl respond to accusations that his government was up for sale comes from the party’s presidium, which met yesterday in Berlin to discuss the latest auditors’ report. HELMUT KOHL was ordered by his own party yesterday to name the donors who contributed to his secret party funds while he was Chancellor.

One reason he is publicising this damaging material could be to boost his popularity by showing he can stand up to Russian excesses.The film shows Mr Saidullayev walking through the village, accompanied by Mr Koshman and several generals. He notices a dug-out full of Russian soldiers drinking tea and – to Mr Koshman’s embarrassment – they are drinking out of cups stolen from Mr Saidullayev’s home.A spokesman for Human Rights Watch said it was vital that Western observers be included in the investigation.. The film also shows piles of stolen goods that have been loaded into Russian vehicles: video recorders, carpets, crockery, an album of family photographs spattered with blood, presumably from the rightful owners.The video was taken by a cameraman working for Malik Saidullayev, a millionaire Chechen businessman who is an ally of Moscow against the Islamic hardliners, but whose home is in Alkhan-Yurt.Mr Saidullayev has now declared that he will run for the Chechen presidency after the war. “I have never seen anything like it anywhere in Chechnya.”Mr Koshman is given documents containing the names of the dead and how they died.

“There are eyewitnesses,” he says handing the papers to a man identified as a military prosecutor. “You will be held personally responsible for this,” he tells one officer, who appears to hold the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In contradiction to earlier blanket denials, military sources yesterday said an inquiry into the allegations of a massacre was now expected.On the video, Mr Koshman can be seen angrily upbraiding army officers in the village. The first reports from the village itself were carried by the BBC on Monday – prompting the Russian Defence Ministry to issue a flat denial that any incident had taken place.But yesterday, Human Rights Watch was given photographs smuggled out of the village substantiating some of the allegations of atrocities. One picture showed the head of a young man partly wrapped in a blanket and placed next to his body. The ear on one side of his face was missing.And an amateur video emerged, showing that the Russian deputy prime minister with responsibility for Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, made a secret visit to Alkhan-Yurt at the weekend, promising that justice would be done.