Annette Schavan resigned on Saturday from her position as Germany's education minister after Duesseldorf's Heinrich Heine University voted to remove her doctorate on ground of plagiarism, news sources reported.
The allegations of plagiarism in Schavan's 1980 thesis originally came from an anonymous blogger whose claims sparked a review of the thesis by an academic panel, Time World said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel told news sources she accepted Schavan's resignation with a "heavy heart," and analysts said this resignation will not bode well for Merkel's reelection campaign, BBC News reported.
Schavan said she plans to take legal action against the university's allegations, and resigned because she did not want the legal strains to affect her political office or party, news sources said.
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