Guttenberg plagiarism scandal
[8][9] In part due to the expressions of confidence by Angela Merkel, the scandal continued to evoke heavy criticism from prominent academics, legal scholars (who accused Guttenberg of intentional plagiarism), and politicians both in the opposition and in the governing coalition.
The prosecutor found 23 prosecutable copyright violations in Guttenberg's dissertation, but estimated that the material damage suffered by the authors of those texts was marginal.
On 12 February 2011 Andreas Fischer-Lescano, professor of law at the University of Bremen, prepared a review of Guttenberg's dissertation[21] for the left-leaning[22] German legal quarterly Kritische Justiz.
During a reference check he discovered an article of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), published in 2003,[24] of which passages had been included in Guttenberg's dissertation without citation.
[32] On the same day the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that the introduction of his dissertation was plagiarised from an FAZ-article from 1997, written by the political scientist Barbara Zehnpfennig.
[29] The next day in a letter Guttenberg asked the University of Bayreuth to revoke his title (rather than degree),[55][56] and declared that he had "lost track of the use of sources over the course of the seven years in which [he] worked on the thesis", but "at no point made mistakes by intention".
What is important to me is his work as Minister of Defence and he carries out these duties perfectly.This statement caused wide-spread anger and condemnation in the German academic community.
[61] Annette Schavan, German minister of Education and Research, who two years later had to resign herself because of plagiarism related to her own dissertation,[62] declared that she didn't "consider the incident to be a trifle", because "intellectual theft is not a small thing.
[74] Guttenberg declared: "I was certainly so arrogant as to believe that I could square the circle by trying to coordinate political passion and work, as well as academic and intellectual challenges, with being a young father" and apologized "for me this was overload, and today I regret to say that I couldn’t manage it.
"[73] Asked whether his call for the allegations as "abstruse" hadn't been premature, Guttenberg confirmed this part of his previous statement as it was related to the accusation of his dissertation being plagiarised.
Guttenberg stated that he couldn't answer whether he had sought prior approval to use these reports for his thesis, but that he had already apologized to Bundestag President Lammert in case of a potential oversight.
[73] On 24 February 2011, President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert revealed that Guttenberg had used six reports by the parliament's research service for his dissertation without prior approval.
[84][85] However, Lammert acknowledged the fact that it was widespread practice among Bundestag members to use documents prepared by the parliamentary research service without first obtaining the necessary approval.
[86] The successor of Guttenberg's research supervisor Peter Häberle at the University of Bayreuth, Oliver Lepsius, alleged that the minister made the mistakes deliberately, and accused him of fraud.
[103] On 2 March 2011 the district attorney's office in Hof announced the launch of an investigation into potential copyright violations contained in Guttenberg's dissertation as soon as his immunity would be withdrawn.
[104] With his official resignation as Member of Parliament the following day,[105] Guttenberg no longer had parliamentary immunity, thus allowing the district attorney's investigations to proceed.
[110] On March 5, 2011, the research supervisors Peter Häberle and Rudolf Streinz issued a statement claiming that in 2006, when the dissertation was completed, the plagiarism wasn't detectable due to a lack of technical opportunities.
[121] On 20 March 2011 the Zurich weekly Neue Zürcher Zeitung published extracts of an apology Guttenberg had sent to Klara Obermüller for not quoting her in his dissertation.
[137][138] Guttenberg's lawyers declared on 13 April 2011 that he was still standing by his commitment of full cooperation but that he was opposed to leaks to the press, which violated proper proceedings and caused prejudgment.
[154] The report then defined the criteria of academic misconduct: deliberately or grossly negligent use of misrepresentations (Falschangaben), the violation of intellectual property of others, and the obstruction of research.
[161] The commission exemplified this in detail on the basis of six Parliamentary Research Service (PRS) papers and listed the passages Guttenberg had used in his dissertation, including all text modifications and extensions.
[164][166] Contrary to previous expectations,[148] the commission denied any responsibility of the research supervisors[160][166] due to a lack of semantic or other indicators for plagiarism[167] and Guttenberg's "exceedingly convincing" oral examination (rigorosum).
[169] In his final response, Guttenberg once again denied that he had deliberately deceived the university and instead blamed severe "errors in workmanship" for the grave deficiencies in his doctoral dissertation.
[143][170][171] He described a high burden of professional commitments as a result of new political responsibilities[160] during the years of his dissertation, which led to an ad-hoc and sometimes chaotic working-method[171][172] with long intervals between working periods.
[160] Family expectations, namely that a started task had to be finished,[170][173] his intention to not disappoint his supervisor,[173][175] and his unwillingness to admit weakness,[160][173] hindered him to quit the dissertation, Guttenberg explained.
[176][177] The University of Bayreuth's handling of the matter was sharply criticized by its former vice-president and law professor Walter Schmitt Glaeser, who, while agreeing that rescinding the doctoral degree was justified, described the additional measures taken by the institution as a battue (Treibjagd).
[178] The professor, member of the CSU and former president of the Bavarian senate, also criticized the lack of conclusive evidence to prove the university's assertion that there was "deliberate deception" on the part of Guttenberg,[181] Glaeser referred to the multiple instances of minor text changes – which the commission viewed as indicators of cheating – as a typical procedure with a text considered by an author as his own work.
Among these critics was Thomas Goppel, also member of the CSU and former Bavarian Minister of Education, who viewed the report as an attempt by the university to downplay its own responsibility and acquit itself.
[44][186][187] In November 2011 the attorney's office in Hof dropped the charges against Guttenberg after having found 23 relevant copyright violations with only minor economic damage.
[188][191] The attorney's office saw no indications that Guttenberg had intentionally used other authors' texts within his dissertation without proper attribution and judged his explanation of losing track of sources as "comprehensible and irrefutable".
