German Opposition Leader Resigns : Politics: Social Democrat Engholm steps down in wake of 1987 ‘dirty tricks’ scandal.

BONN —  In the latest crisis to rock Europe’s beleaguered political mainstream, the head of Germany’s opposition Social Democrats quit Monday in the wake of a 6-year-old “dirty tricks” scandal.

Coming amid scandals that have left Italy’s government in tatters and drove France’s former prime minister to suicide, the blow to Germany’s oldest political party deepens what is fast becoming a collective crisis of confidence in the Continent’s political establishments.

The resignation of Bjoern Engholm left a clear playing field for Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Union in German national elections next year, a boost by default for the conservative incumbent as his post-unification popularity sags.

The 53-year-old Engholm resigned as chairman of the left-leaning Social Democrats and premier of the state of Schleswig-Holstein after admitting he gave false testimony about what he knew about a 1987 smear campaign that targeted him.

Saying that his “stock of trust” had been damaged and that he did not wish to cause further harm to his family or the party he had served for 30 years, Engholm stepped down amid charges that he knew in advance about the botched smear campaign against him, used it to his political advantage and then lied about it afterward.

The 1987 scandal focused on the race between Engholm and Uwe Barschel, the Christian Democratic incumbent, for the post of state premier in Schleswig-Holstein.

Barschel won the election but was forced to resign in disgrace when it was disclosed that he had tried to defame Engholm by raising questions about his sexuality and tax records. Engholm then became state premier, and Barschel was later found dead in a Geneva bathtub, an apparent suicide.

The latest in a series of Bonn scandals points not only to political problems in Germany but also to a broader sense of malaise in Europe.

For leaders of the parties that did much to shape the democracies that emerged from the ruins of post-World War II Europe, events have rarely painted a darker picture.

The crushing defeat of French Socialists in parliamentary elections in March broke the party’s morale and unleashed such a torrent of criticism that the Socialist former prime minister, Pierre Beregovoy, put a gun to his head Saturday and killed himself.

In Italy, the established political party system is reeling under the weight of seemingly unbridled scandal and corruption.

Although the easygoing Engholm was a relatively new national figure in Germany, his departure nonetheless underscores how empty the country’s political stage has become and how impatient the audience is growing.

Kohl and his Christian Democrats may reap superficial rewards from the chaos and confusion of their main political rivals, but polls indicate that all established parties are the losers in the current national funk.

With western German taxpayers angry over the high costs of unification and the onslaught of what experts say may become the country’s worst recession since the war, and with eastern Germans resentful over a lower standard of living and high unemployment, the mood has rarely been more favorable for fringe, extremist parties.

And with the number of petty scandals growing almost as fast as the unsolved problems facing united Germany, the political leadership is viewed with a deepening sense of disillusionment, anger and frustration.

A poll published two weeks ago by the leading news magazine Der Spiegel showed the personal popularity of most leading politicians on the decline, with support for both the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats at near-record lows and the largest group of all declaring that they would not vote.

Fringe parties generated a collective total of 13% approval, extremely high by German standards. Polls also have shown the far-right Republikaner party, headed by an avowed former member of Hitler’s SS (elite force), easily clearing the 5% hurdle it needs to enter the Bundestag, or lower house of Parliament, in the 1994 fall elections.

Five government ministers have quit the German Cabinet over the past year as the result of scandals or infighting, and Engholm had enjoyed the image of “Mr. Clean.”

Johannes Rau, premier of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, took over as acting Social Democratic leader pending party elections.

Jones reported from Bonn and Marshall from Berlin.