A new plagiarism scandal has hit the German Green Party, this time targeting their candidate for Chancellor, Robert Habeck. A report by Stefan Weber, a self-proclaimed plagiarism detective, has found 128 instances of plagiarism in Habeck’s dissertation, which was written 25 years ago. Weber claims that Habeck has presented a fake reading list, with numerous works cited without proper attribution and even plagiarized direct quotes and flow text.
Habeck has denied the allegations, stating that the report is an attempt to discredit him just days before the federal election. He claims that the University of Hamburg’s ombudsman has cleared his dissertation of any scientific misconduct and that the president of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, has also given his work a clean bill of health.
However, Weber’s report suggests that the ombudsman’s statement is misleading, as it only recommends that some of Habeck’s citations and footnotes be revised to conform to modern citation standards, which were not as well-defined 25 years ago.
This is not the first time Weber has accused a prominent Green politician of plagiarism. In 2021, he targeted Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party’s candidate for Chancellor at the time, over her book “Jetzt. Wie wir unser Land erneuern”. Weber’s accusations have been met with silence from the Green Party and their supporters, who are known for their fact-resistance. As Weber predicted, it seems likely that the party will dismiss the allegations, citing the supposed normalcy of plagiarism in the field of literature and the passage of time.