Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, new German defense minister, a youngster…
(BRUXELLES2) He is a CSU, Bavarian Christian Democrat, the baron Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who inherits the portfolio of
Ministry of Defense in the new Merkel government which was just formed on Saturday. He succeeds Franz-Josef Jung, who left for the Ministry of Labour. In particular, he will have to carry out the Afghanistan campaign. And in particular to increase the numbers assigned to the training of the Afghan army and police as provided for in the government agreement.
A youngster... Aged only 37 - he was born on December 5, 1971 -, after his baccalaureate in 1991, Karl-Théodor did not really have a career that predestined him to the Ministry of Defense, apart from military service to the alpine hunters of the 23rd mountain infantry brigade of Mittenwald (whose sign is the Edelweis) and is a reserve officer. He studied law and political science in Bayreuth and Munich. His doctoral thesis (obtained in 2007) deals with a subject of the future: Constitution and constitutional treaty: "stages of constitutional development in the USA and the European Union". He enters the Guttenberg family business, where he only makes one turn, especially to enter politics. A member of the CSU, he took the steps to become secretary of the Bavarian Christian Social Union in 2008. He was then appointed Minister of the Economy in the federal government in February 2009, where he displayed a strong liberalism, s opposing in particular the establishment of a minimum wage.
The son of... Baron, Karl-Theodor comes from a noble family of the highest extraction, Frankish from the start, and has always been "well" surrounded. his father Enoch is a musician and ecologist before his time since one of the founders of the League for the Environment and Nature Conservation in Germany (BUND). His grandfather, an officer in the Wehrmacht, took part in the attack on Hitler on July 20, 1944. Upon liberation, he opted for the CSU where he showed himself to be a vibrant opponent of Willy Brandt's Ost-Europa policy (he wrote several books on this subject: The new Ostpolitik, and also wrote a book (in 1970) on the future of Europe). His mother remarried Adolf von Ribbentrop, the son of Hitler's foreign minister from 1938 to 1945, convicted by the Nüremberg court and executed. Karl Theodor married Stephanie, Countess of Bismarck-Schönhausen (great-great-granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck), founder of an association for the fight against child pornography, "Innocence in danger", with the Minister for the Family, Von der Leyen. They have two daughters.
Karl-Theodor with Stephanie, his wife. (Photo credit: zu Guttenberg)
Note that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the leader of the liberal party FDP Guido Westerwelle. And that the Minister of Health, Philip Rössler, Vietnamese of origin (adopted by a German family) is a former medical officer of the Bundeswehr.
