He was voted Germany's most popular politician, a chisel-jawed, gelled-haired aristocrat who held such rock-star status that his party used to play an AC/DC track every time he took to the stage. But Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has resigned as defence minister after being engulfed by a plagiarism scandal, leaving the ruling coalition with a serious charisma vacuum.
His departure is a huge blow for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union party (CDU). Already weakened after defeats in recent regional elections, she is facing the prospect of implosion at six other local polls this year.
The 39-year-old baron, often tipped to be a future chancellor, has handed in his notice to Merkel after almost two weeks of frontpage stories about the authenticity of his PhD thesis. He is now expected to retreat to his castle in Bavaria to plot his next move. "It is the most painful step I've ever had to take," Guttenberg said at a press conference in Berlin. "I was always prepared to fight but I have reached the limits of my powers."
Last week the University of Bayreuth stripped Guttenberg of his doctorate after he admitted substantially copying (inadvertently, he said) from other sources. He blamed the errors on his busy schedule: when he finished his thesis in 2006, he was juggling his duties as an MP and raising two daughters with his TV presenter wife, the equally blue-blooded Countess Stephanie von Bismarck. The admission led to him being dubbed the minister for cut-and-paste, or Baron zu Googleberg.
Merkel admitted she was caught off guard by the resignation, saying she was "surprised" when she received a request from Guttenberg to talk to her over the phone . She said she accepted his resignation "with a heavy heart" and praised Guttenberg as someone with an "exceptional political talent". It was too early to name a successor, she added, but a decision would be made shortly.
Before the scandal broke last month, Guttenberg was often described as the "shooting star" of conservatism in Germany. He built a reputation as a plain-speaking man of action in a brief stint as economy minister and then, after the 2009 election, as defence minister.
Good-looking and apparently fearless, he would swoop in to visit German troops in Afghanistan looking like an extra from Top Gun in aviator shades, flight suit and desert boots. These visits received breathless write-ups in Germany's multimillion-selling tabloid Bild, and pictures were splashed over gossip magazines.
A new biography of Guttenberg, published on Tuesday, recalls how the dashing minister even had his own theme tune, Hell's Bells by the Australian rock band AC/DC, which would herald his arrival at events hosted by the CDU or its Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
The book, Guttenberg Biographie, describes its subject as "Germany's number one celeb" and recalls how he had such presence that when he walked through a crowd he was like "Moses parting the Red Sea".
In less than two years as defence minister, Guttenberg pushed through the most drastic reform of Germany's armed forces since the second world war. Most notably, he successfully fought for a plan to end conscription, part of an effort to slim down the German military and make it better adapted to an era in which it faces growing demands to deploy overseas.
In his resignation speech, he insisted the reforms would continue. It was wrong that he had become the story, overshadowing the deaths and woundings of 13 Bundeswehr soldiers last week, he said. " I will gladly concede to my opponents that I was appoined minister for defence, not self-defence," he said.
But however much praise he received for his bold decision-making in office, Guttenberg's crisis management after the plagiarism allegations emerged two weeks ago was less impressive.
He issued a statement describing them as "absurd", then said he would stop using his title as a doctor only temporarily while Bayreuth University looked into the accusations. He told jeering lawmakers last week that he "did not deliberately cheat, but made serious errors". Merkel stood by Guttenberg, saying a week ago that she appointed him as defence minister, not as an academic assistant.
But the scandal wouldn't go away, raising the possibility that Guttenberg would be a liability rather than an asset in forthcoming state elections.
"I think that, if this had carried on longer … it could have done more damage than would making a clean cut now and looking forward," said Oskar Niedermayer, a political science professor at Berlin's Free University.
Many commentators believe Guttenberg will rise again. Merkel herself refused to rule out a comeback, telling reporters she was confident that she would have the opportunity to work with Guttenberg again in the future. Referring to his resignation phone call, she said: "That certainly won't be the last time he and I have a personal conversation."
It's all in the name
One of the German media's favourite facts about the now former defence minister is his quite spectacular name. When he was born on 5 December 1971, the politician was christened Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Sylvester Joseph von und zu Guttenberg. The last bit means "baron of Guttenberg", a village in the Franken area of Bavaria where the Guttenbergs have had their family seat – an impressive castle – since 1315.
His friends in politics preferred to call him simply K-T but his many enemies never tired of rolling out his freight train of a monicker to remind everyone of their rival's noble background.
Despite his privileged upbringing – or perhaps because of it – Guttenberg was hugely popular with the tabloid Bild newspaper, which rarely referred to him without mentioning that he was "Germany's most popular politician" – an honour he received via a poll in 2009, when he took the top spot from Angela Merkel. He was also referred to as the "German Kennedy", with his stylish TV presenter wife inevitably described as his "Jackie O".
But over the past two weeks, Guttenberg has received yet more nicknames, most notably Baron zu Googleberg, the minister for cut and paste.