Well, it seems to be considered kind of private in Germany: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-financ

Well, it seems to be considered kind of private in Germany: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php The parties, in return, must submit yearly financial statements to the legislature. In these, only contributors of more than €10,000 per year must be named. (...) In addition, the accounting responsibilities of the parties free individual members and candidates from burdensome paperwork, while the focus of the disclosure rules on large donors protects the privacy of candidates, elected officials, and small donors. In general I agree with the view expressed by Kent Pitman (famous Lisp hacker) here: http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_privacy_of_political_campaign_contributions http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_pri... . Basically he says privacy outweighs transparency for small donations, but not large ones. In particular, he mentions Keith Olbermann being suspended by his employer for making a small donation similar to Eich's.