Does nobility matter in present day German politics? The question was raised during a popular talk show that focused on Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s carefully groomed image.

By Walter Pfaeffle

Is this image fading, asked talk show hostess Anne Will at the start of her one-hour TV program.? A few days earlier, Maybrit IIlner of a competing network wanted to know if the popular 37-year old baron was still in command of the troops.

While Guttenberg may have suffered a series of setbacks, the conservative politician and member of the Christian Democatic Union (CDU) continues to outshine all others in opinion polls.

Most recently, Guttenberg opened himself to criticism, mainly from the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), when he relieved the commander of the Gorch Fock navy training ship from his duties.

This followed press reports of embarrassing details about harsh conditions on board leading up to the death of a woman cadet in November.

The minister is also under fire in connection with the accidental shooting death of a soldier in Afghanistan and the unexplained opening of soldiers’ mail from the Afghan front.

Opposition leaders have accused the minister of using Gorch Fock commander Norbert Schatz as a scapegoat to distract from his own failure to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the sailor’s death, while also allowing misinformation about the shooting death in Afghanistan to spread.

Thin-skinned Guttenberg has dismissed these criticisms as careless and has generally displayed annoyance with his detractors.

The fact is that he recalled the Gorch Fock skipper to Berlin without giving him a chance to defend himself against the charges. There are reports of mutiny onboard the ship.

Schatz had a reputation as a tough but highly regarded officer. Life on a navy training ship is not supposed to be easy. Clearly, degrading rituals in the military needed to be investigated, but Guttenberg showed signs that he was interested only in protecting himself, the liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.

Leading the battle against the baron was Thomas Oppermann, who heads the SPD’s parliamentarian caucus in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament.

He accused Guttenberg of being led into action by mass circulation tabloid Bild which revealed details of the alleged problems on board the Gorch Fock before Guttenberg informed the Bundestag.

“The boulevard press is manipulating Guttenberg by remote control, he told the Anne Will panel.

Bild’s city editor Nikolaus Blome objected. ”I think it’s great that you attribute all those capabilities to us, but there hasn’t been any cooperation with Guttenberg,” he told Oppermann. “On the contrary, we badgered him considerably.”

Anne Will called attention to Guttenbergs trip to Afghanistan in December, with wife Stephanie in tow. The couple brought along television host Johannes Kerner for interviews with soldiers.

The late night broadcast turned out to be a flop - all the more reason for critics to jump on Guttenberg.

Actor Thomas Matthes objected to the minister’s wearing mirrored sunglasses ion the trip. This conveyed a “false image of coolness” in a war where soldiers are dying, he said.

A fellow aristocrat, Fritz von Thurn und Taxis, doesn’t understand all the fuzz. “Today members of the press are practically sitting at the cabinet table. Why shouldn’t he make use of them,” he asked the panel.

When the show ended, the discussion had shifted away from German soldiers dying in Afghanistan to the „star qualities“ of Guttenberg and his knockout wife.

Does Guttenberg owe his sudden rise to political fame to the fact that he is a member of the aristocracy, albeit on a much lower level than Thurn unf Taxis, a prince, Anne Will wondered.

“It helps in the beginning, but if you want to last you have to earn your stripes like everyone else,” Thurn und Taxis responded.