German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer fell Monday into the deepest crisis of his career at the Foreign Ministry after claiming responsibility for a visa scandal that may have made it easier for human smugglers in Eastern Europe to bring people, including drug dealers and forced prostitutes, into Germany. Fischer said he would take "political responsibility" for "possible mistakes" made by his employees.

In 1999, Fischer's deputy, Ludger Volmer, issued new visa regulations for Eastern Europe aimed at making it easier for businessmen, families with relatives in Germany and tourists to travel to the country. The conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union, which is calling for Fischer's resignation, claims the German Embassy in Kiev issued visas to virtually every person who applied and that other alarmed European Union member states warned the German foreign ministry that a high number of known criminals were in possession of German visas.

Fischer is by far Germany's most-popular politician and he has the support of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, but if the scandal deepens, all bets are off. Even the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung, generally very supportive of Fischer's Green Party writes in its headline: "Fischer's visa will be running out soon." And the business daily Financial Times Deutschland screams: "Fischer fights for his job." You can almost hear the paperboy hollering the headline at the corner newsstand.

The question many papers are asking in Germany is this: were the "failings or mistakes" of Fischer's colleagues incompetence or did they blatantly promote crime? "There are two solutions now," writes the financial daily Handelsblatt, "Fischer's resignation, which would send the coalition into an existential crisis, or Fischer's complete exculpation, which would amount to a political defeat for the opposition." The paper adds that the facts suggest dubious practices rather than the promotion of crime. Still, the scandal could have immediate consequences for the EU's eastward expansion: "In the coming weeks people will associate Eastern Europe with smuggler bands, illegal work and forced prostitution. Calls for protection will become so loud that we can forget all thoughts of enlarging the EU eastwards."

But the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls for blood on Tuesday, arguing that Fischer should be fully investigated. "How little Fischer has to defend himself with was revealed in his remark that travel protection passes were introduced by his predecessors," it writes. But the connections to dubious business partners that fall under Fischer's responsibility and which were often ignored -- go on his account. "Fischer must enter the witness box and explain what he understands by 'political responsibility'."

The Financial Times Deutschland makes a comparison sure to send a shiver down Fischer's spine: it compares the foreign minister's leadership to that of DaimlerChrysler CEO Juergen Schrempp. This weekend, DER SPIEGEL reported that DaimlerChrysler's Smart car project has racked up close to €2 billion in losses since it hit the market. "What's the difference between Schrempp and Fischer?" the paper asks, hypothetically. "None. Schrempp has had to answer for one flop at his company after another for years --- be it Mitsubishi, Chrysler or Mercedes. Fischer has to answer to the fact that his Foreign Ministry has, for years, made the work of smugglers and pimps easier and has opened the way for prostitutes and illegal workers to come to Germany and the EU." Worse yet, the foreign ministry has been giving them the visas to come here. "But neither Schrempp nor Fischer is willing to assume any personal consequences for these failures because of their senses of self-importance." So when Fischer takes political responsibility for a scandal, what does that mean? Other politicians have resigned in the past, including the Green former agricultural minister, Andrea Fischer, who quit office when mad cow disease hit Germany. But that's unlikely to happen with Fischer. "If Fischer assumes political responsibility for the visa affair then nothing happens," it writes. Why? The term "political responsibility" has become meaningless in the Green Party and that, argues the paper, "has made its contribution to the often-lamented disillusionment with politics."

The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung also comes out critically against Fischer. "When officials at the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation speak of 'criminal networks,' that have run smuggling businesses, the Greens speak of 'small-time crooks' whom no fuss should be made over," it writes. "Even the forced prostitution scandal that has been operated by human smugglers is also being played down." But the paper stops short of calling for his resignation, saying such calls from the opposition are part of the usual political clamor. "But it is true that the Foreign Ministry's leadership failed for quite some time because they allowed something to continue that should have been stopped immediately." Fischer, it writes, spoke of "possible failures" by his deputies. "But such lapses of the apparatus are also a leadership failure."