KARL-THEODOR zu GUTTENBERG

Karl-Theodor, Baron of Guttenberg, is the rising star of German politics. Still not yet 40, he is Defence Minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition Government, and the future hope for the Chancellorship of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party to Ms. Merkel's CDU. He is easily Germany's most popular politician.

Yet he has just run into the sort of problem, that only seems to hit politicians with meteoric career paths. In 2007 Herr zu Guttenberg added to his many personal names the title of Doctor, after completing a PhD in law at Bayreuth University. However, it has emerged during the past week that he in fact copied parts of his thesis. This is in principle ok, if you make it very clear that it is not your own work, and give a clear attribution of the source. This did not happen. On 18 February, Herr zu Guttenberg said he would temporarily stop using his doctor title; on 21 February he said he would no longer use it; today, following an investigation, the university revoked the degree, citing "extensive violations" of its rules against plagiarism.

The affair has not - or, at least, not yet - affected his popularity with voters. But it has put Ms. Merkel in a very difficult position. On the one hand, she runs a Government short on star quality. On the other, she is having to defend someone whose "summa cum laude" (the top grade) thesis turned out to be partly or mostly the work of others. As more and more outsiders pick over the 400-page work on EU-US constitutional history, and the number of discovered plagiarisms rises, the pressure will be on to find a way out. My guess is that Herr zu Guttenberg will resign from his job "for personal reasons" before the summer holidays.

Walter Blotscher