AFTER A meteoric rise, Berlin’s popular defence minister Karl- Theodor zu Guttenberg crashed to earth yesterday in spectacular fashion.
Mr zu Guttenberg caught chancellor Angela Merkel off guard yesterday with his sudden resignation after failing to shake off allegations that he plagiarised large sections of his doctoral thesis.
Mr zu Guttenberg (39), a member of a prominent aristocratic family, said he was standing down “as a matter of decorum”.
“This is the most painful step I’ve taken in my life . . . but I cannot meet the high expectations I have set for myself,” the minister said in a quavering voice.
“I thank the chancellor for her support but I have reached the limits of my strength.”
Two weeks ago, he dismissed as “abstruse” the initial allegations that his 2006 dissertation contained a large amount of unattributed material.
However, as an online co-operative called GuttenPlag Wiki discovered new uncited passages on an hourly basis, he was forced to concede that “serious mistakes” had “unconsciously” found their way into his text.
The minister continued to deny charges of plagiarism, even after his alma mater, Bayreuth University, stripped him of his academic title.
GuttenPlag Wiki said yesterday it had detected plagiarism on 324 of the dissertation’s 407 pages.
Although Dr Merkel backed her minister, the continued discussion prompted leading government figures to break rank.
Education and research minister Annette Schavan said she was “ashamed” by the affair, while Bundestag president Norbert Lammert, Germany’s most senior figure after the president, described it as a “nail in the coffin of democratic trust”.
The young baron with trademark gelled-back hair burst on to the political scene three years ago and was taken up by German voters and journalists alike as a welcome breath of fresh air in the country’s dowdy political scene.
With a sizable fortune and a pretty wife descended from Otto von Bismarck, Mr zu Guttenberg cut a dashing figure as a man with independent means and an independent mind.
“He set a high standard for himself as someone who wasn’t like the rest of the political establishment,” said Prof Frank Decker, political scientist with the University of Bonn. “After setting himself this higher standard, he couldn’t measure up to it in the end.”
Mr zu Guttenberg championed the causes of humility and public service, characteristics that had some basis in his aristocratic background but which he embroidered tirelessly, assisted by his wife and close allies at the tabloid Bild.
Mr zu Guttenberg said yesterday it was this media hype, “something in which I played a part”, that brought him crashing to earth at such speed.
“He is a very impulsive, highly emotional man,” said journalist Eckart Lohse, whose autobiography of the now ex-minister went on sale yesterday morning.
“Everything always had to be perfect with him and I have the impression he always went around with a spray-can of gold paint.”
After a campaign to keep the minister in office, the powerful Bild made a rare admission of defeat yesterday, saying: “In Berlin, what can’t be can’t be.”