BERLIN, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg says he didn't plagiarize work for his 2006 doctoral thesis.
But Guttenberg, 39, said he stopping using the Ph.D. title while claims he used the work of other writers without attribution are being investigated, the BBC reported.
Guttenberg rejected as "absurd" reports in the newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung that one passage in his dissertation was copied word for word from a newspaper article without attribution. It also said he used words from a public lecture without attribution.
"The writing of the dissertation was my own work," Guttenberg said.
A German magazine said Guttenberg also used a paragraph from the U.S. Embassy Web site without attribution.
A professor from Bremen University started the controversy when he began writing a review of the thesis with the aid of the Internet.
The University of Bayreuth, where he did doctoral work, asked Guttenberg to respond to the charges.
Guttenberg did his dissertation on the development of constitution law in the European Union and United States and earn a doctorate in law.
