Angela Merkel, 2010 Guttenberg is a member of the
Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) and held different positions within the party, including that of secretary general. From October 2005 to November 2008, Guttenberg served as chairman of the
CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee and as spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag's Committee on disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control. He also chaired the CSU Foreign Policy Expert Committee and the German-British parliamentary group during that time.
Political positions In early 2004, Guttenberg introduced the concept of a
Privileged Partnership between Turkey and the
European Union as a viable alternative to
accession of Turkey to the European Union into the German political discourse. Guttenberg based his opposition to full Turkish membership in the EU on the country's insufficient fulfillment of relevant accession criteria, for example with regard to the
Cyprus dispute. At the same time, he stressed the necessity of maintaining good relations with Turkey and was therefore critical of a French initiative to criminalize the denial of the
Armenian genocide. Guttenberg also repeatedly warned of the looming threat posed to German and European security by
Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. However, he rejected taking rash military action against
Iran and instead called for an international diplomatic effort to deal with Tehran's nuclear program. As a Member of Parliament, he was a strong critic of the far-left party
Die Linke, which he accused of links to
terrorists. He was also a member of the
Europa-Union Parliamentary Group of the German Bundestag and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
Secretary General of the CSU In September 2008, the CSU suffered heavy losses in the
Bavarian state election and lost its absolute majority in the
Bavarian Landtag for the first time in 46 years. As a result of this political defeat, the CSU party leadership stepped down and
Horst Seehofer, the new CSU chairman and
minister-president of Bavaria, appointed Guttenberg as
secretary general of the CSU in November 2008. As secretary-general, Guttenberg called for tax cuts, an increase in family benefits In addition to domestic policy he also emphasized his focus on international affairs.
Federal Minister of Economics After the resignation of
Michael Glos on 9 February 2009 Guttenberg became
Federal Minister of Economics and Technology in the
first Merkel cabinet. Guttenberg, the youngest economics minister in the German post-war era, came to office during the
2008 financial crisis and the
Great Recession. During the
2008 financial crisis, several major German banks were near failure, including
Hypo Real Estate, which received €102 billion of credit and guarantees from Germany's bank rescue fund. In this case, Guttenberg opposed an overly hasty nationalization of Hypo Real Estate, which he considered only as "
ultissima ratio, a measure of the very last resort". A few months later he drafted a legislative proposal to minimize the financial risks of failing banks, which caused controversy but later became the foundation of the German bank restructuring bill. In the case of troubled German companies asking for state aid, including automaker
Opel and now-defunct mail-order service
Arcandor/Quelle, Guttenberg was reluctant to commit government resources. He insisted on strict conditionality, including restructuring, and limited support to only those companies which were otherwise competitive but were temporarily affected by the crisis. In 2009, Opel employed 25,000 workers in Germany and indirectly supported 50,000 additional jobs through its supplier network. In his talks with
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the director of the
United States National Economic Council,
Lawrence Summers, and
Rick Wagoner, then
CEO of General Motors, Guttenberg demanded that GM provide a viable restructuring plan for Opel as a precondition for receiving financial assistance from the German state. Guttenberg and Wagoner agreed on the necessity of a private investor for Opel. After Guttenberg's visit to the US, negotiations between the German government, GM, and potential Opel investors, including
Fiat and Canada's
Magna International, were stalled by GM and the
U.S. Treasury. In contrast to Merkel and other German political leaders, Guttenberg preferred insolvency for Opel rather than the infusion of unconditional financial assistance from the German state. Because of the resultant financial risks to the German state, Guttenberg opposed the sale of Opel to Magna International, favoured by Chancellor Merkel, and—according to media coverage—even offered his resignation over the controversy. The Opel-Magna deal later failed, and Opel remained a subsidiary of GM, who had to reimburse financial assistance to Germany. In the summer of 2009, he surpassed Angela Merkel as the most popular politician in Germany.
Federal Minister of Defence in front of
the Pentagon, 2009 The
2009 Bundestag elections led to a change in government, as the incumbent
grand coalition of
CDU/
CSU and
SPD was replaced by a center-right coalition of CDU/CSU and
FDP. According to German press reports, Chancellor Merkel offered Guttenberg the choice between the
interior and the
defence ministries while negotiating the distribution of ministerial posts within the new coalition government. Guttenberg decided to opt for the defence portfolio and took the oath of office on 28 October 2009 as part of the
Second Cabinet Merkel. He was the youngest-ever German
defence minister in the post-war era.
Afghanistan The first political challenge facing defence minister Guttenberg was dealing with the
Kunduz airstrike of 4 September 2009. Initially, he adopted the position of his predecessor
Jung and defended the air strike as "militarily appropriate". However, in contrast to Jung, Guttenberg conceded that the strike had also caused civilian casualties. After Guttenberg had received additional information and investigative reports dating back to the tenure of his predecessor Jung, Guttenberg changed his position concerning the "Kunduz airstrike" and dismissed
Bundeswehr Chief of Staff Schneiderhahn and Parliamentary State Secretary of Defence Wichert on 26 November 2009. Jung, who in the meantime had assumed the position of
labor minister in the second Merkel cabinet, took full political responsibility for the delay in sharing relevant Kunduz air strike information and resigned the following day. At the demand of the opposition parties, the Bundestag subsequently established a special investigative committee to shed light on the defense ministry's communications policy in connection with the Kunduz air strike. The final report of the Bundestag's special investigative committee cleared Guttenberg from the accusation that he had been responsible for the defence ministry's inadequate communications policy following the Kunduz strike. The findings were supported by members from the ruling CDU/CSU-FDP coalition while the opposition parties criticized the special investigative committee's report and later published their own account of the investigation. Shortly after taking office, Guttenberg publicly compared the situation faced by Bundeswehr soldiers in
Afghanistan to "war". In doing so, Guttenberg broke a major political taboo since up until then Germany's political leadership – including the Chancellor and previous defense ministers – had only referred to the Afghanistan intervention as a "stabilization deployment". The new classification of the Bundeswehr's Afghanistan deployment as "war" improved the legal status of German soldiers operating under international law. in December 2009 Guttenberg attempted to elevate public perception of Germany's Afghan mission by personally participating – sometimes along with the Chancellor – at funeral services held for fallen Bundeswehr soldiers. In November 2010, Guttenberg established the
Combat Action Medal of the Bundeswehr, which is awarded for bravery in combat and to soldiers who were the targets of terrorist or military attacks. At the political level, Guttenberg spoke out strongly against a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. He specifically warned against imposing fixed troop withdrawal timetables that do not take into account the security situation on the ground. Furthermore, Guttenberg also demanded a stronger involvement of key neighboring states such as Russia, India, and China in the resolution of the Afghan conflict. In light of the traditionally challenging security situation in Afghanistan, Guttenberg called for the development of an internationally coordinated long-term security strategy – based on the use of special forces and close intelligence cooperation within the coalition – to stabilize the country even after the eventual withdrawal of all foreign troops. During his tenure as defense minister, Guttenberg made nine visits to Afghanistan and the German soldiers deployed there. To gain a first-hand understanding of the situation on the ground and the military risks of the Bundeswehr's mission, Guttenberg went several times to the frontlines of the Afghan conflict. He also invited journalists to accompany him on these trips in an effort to educate the wider German public about the nature of the Bundeswehr deployment in Afghanistan. In December 2010, Guttenberg traveled to Afghanistan along with his wife Stephanie to visit with the troops before the Christmas holidays. In addition, he was also accompanied by German TV moderator
Johannes B. Kerner, who hosted his prime-time talk show at the Bundeswehr camp in
Mazar-i-Sharif featuring the Guttenbergs and German soldiers deployed there. While other German media and the opposition parties sharply criticized Guttenberg for allowing Kerner to host his show in Afghanistan, the reaction by the German troops and the general public was predominantly positive.
Bundeswehr reform In early 2010, Guttenberg decided to push for fundamental Bundeswehr reforms in an effort to address the structural deficits within the German armed forces and to deal with declining defense budgets. The overall goal was to boost the Bundeswehr's expeditionary capabilities while, at the same time, achieving cost reductions. To accomplish these reforms, Guttenberg proposed to reduce the armed forces to 165,000 active duty soldiers and to suspend the
draft, resulting in the most comprehensive restructuring of the Bundeswehr since its founding in 1955. Guttenberg's reform plans were supported by a blue-ribbon "Bundeswehr Structural Commission" that the minister created in April 2010. The proposals triggered a major debate about the country's draft system and were met with significant political opposition, not least in Guttenberg's own political party. In the end, Guttenberg's view won out and on 29 October 2010, the CSU general party convention approved the minister's motion to suspend the draft by a large majority. Several weeks later, Chancellor Merkel's CDU held its own party convention and also voted in favor of suspending the draft. In November 2010, a
United States diplomatic cables leak revealed that American diplomats viewed Guttenberg positively, with one cable describing him as a "foreign policy expert, a transatlanticist and a close and well-known friend to the United States".
Plagiarism scandal and resignation In 2011, Guttenberg resigned amid controversy over the doctoral dissertation he submitted at the
University of Bayreuth, after the first accusations of
plagiarism became public in February 2011. Guttenberg's dissertation, (), had been the basis of his 2007 doctorate from the
University of Bayreuth. Guttenberg at first denied intentional plagiarism, calling the accusations "absurd," but acknowledged that he may have made errors in his footnotes. In addition, it emerged that Guttenberg had requested a report from the Bundestag's research department, which he had then inserted into his dissertation without attribution. On 23 February 2011, Guttenberg apologized in
parliament for flaws in his dissertation, but denied intentional deception and denied the use of a ghostwriter. On 23 February 2011, the University of Bayreuth rescinded Guttenberg's doctorate. In part due to the expressions of confidence by Angela Merkel, the scandal continued to evoke heavy criticism from prominent academics, legal scholars (who accused Guttenberg of intentional plagiarism), and politicians both in the opposition and in the governing coalition. On 1 March 2011, Guttenberg announced his resignation as Minister of Defense, from his seat in the Bundestag, and from all other political offices. In May 2011, a University of Bayreuth commission tasked with investigating Guttenberg's dissertation came to the conclusion that Guttenberg had engaged in intentional deception in the writing of his dissertation, and had violated standards of good academic practice. The commission found that he had included borrowed passages throughout his dissertation without citation, and had modified those passages in order to conceal their origin. In November 2011, the prosecution in
Hof discontinued the criminal proceedings for copyright violations against Guttenberg on condition of Guttenberg paying to a charity. The prosecutor found 23 prosecutable copyright violations in Guttenberg's dissertation, but estimated that the material damage suffered by the authors of those texts was marginal. The scandal also led to scrutiny of other politicians' doctorates, Guttenberg himself has always ruled out the possibility of a comeback. == Career after politics ==