The German Transport Minister, Mr Reinhard Klimmt, resigned yesterday after just 11 months in office over involvement in an embezzlement scandal.
Mr Klimmt (58) was fined DM 27,000 (£10,800) last Monday for allegedly funnelling illegal donations from the Catholic charity Caritas to FC Saarbrucken soccer club using faked sponsorship contracts while he was a member of the federal government in the state of Saarland. Mr Klimmt maintains his innocence and had resisted pressure to resign even from within his own Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, said he had accepted the resignation to keep the affair "from damaging the government". Mr Volker Neumann - the SPD head of the parliamentary committee investigating the the former chancellor, Mr Helmut Kohl - said the same standards should be applied to Mr Klimmt as to Mr Kohl.
The only other minister to resign since the SPD took office in 1998 is the former left-wing finance minister, Mr Oskart Lafontaine, an ally of Mr Klimmt. Mr Lafontaine resigned after clashing with the Chancellor over finance policy and Mr Klimmt's appointment was seen as an attempt by the then weak Chancellor to appease the party's left.
But Mr Schroder showed his now steadier hand by appointing a more moderate successor, Mr Kurt Bodewig (45).
