Atten-Shun!

After weeks of controversy over his handling of the future of Deutsche Telekom, the last thing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder needed was another scandal just nine weeks before a general election. But allegations of financial impropriety swirling around Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping forced Schröder to fire him last week. "In my opinion the necessary basis for cooperation in government no longer exists," Schröder said.

Scharping, 54, was ousted after the weekly magazine Stern reported that he had received payments from a public relations agency that has several defense contractors as clients. Scharping admitted he had received €40,000 as part payment for his memoirs in 1998 and a further €30,000 for lectures before he took office as Defense Minister. He denied Stern's allegation that he had received €28,000 in luxury clothes. Scharping said he had properly reported the payments and paid tax on them. "Large parts of the claims against me are false and deliberately defamatory," he said.

The payments controversy was only the latest in a string of accusations against Scharping, a former leader of the Social Democratic party (SPD) who ran unsuccessfully against Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1994. Last summer, Scharping came under severe criticism when photographs were published showing him and his girlfriend cavorting in Majorca at a time when German troops were beginning a dangerous deployment in Macedonia. Scharping was also criticized for using military planes to fly back and forth to Majorca to consult about the German army deployment. But the controversy was overshadowed when terrorists attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

Scharping was the eighth minister to lose his job since Schröder came to power in 1998. He will be replaced by Peter Struck, the SPD leader in parliament.