Potential next Führer now faces criminal investigation.

The following is an extract from the Irish Times, the full report is linked here.

The 39-year-old aristocrat  - full name Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester, Baron von und zu Guttenberg - is a rising star in Merkel's conservative coalition, who tops popularity polls and has so far enjoyed doting coverage in the conservative media and gossip magazines.

Yet Suddeutsche Zeitung  reported last week that Guttenberg, married to the great-great-granddaughter of "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck, had used incorrectly attributed work from some 19 authors in at least 50 pages of his more than 400-page thesis.

Guttenberg repeatedly has said the thesis is his own work.

"I wrote this thesis myself, and I stand by it, also by the idiotic things that I wrote," he said.

Bayreuth public prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation and the university there has given Guttenberg two weeks to respond to the allegations.

 Earlier posts on this blog on this topic, over the past few days, are linked here and here.