Tuesday, August 03, 2021
“He has a problem after all”
Plagiarism hunter takes back Laschet’s discharge
Armin Laschet admits errors in a book he wrote after allegations of plagiarism. A plagiarism checker initially relieves the chancellor candidate and now rows back: Another passage in Laschet’s book has been copied.
The Austrian plagiarism checker Stefan Weber now has another one in Armin Laschet’s book “The rising republic. Immigration as an opportunity” after a reader’s advice Plagiarism office discovered. Weber had previously exonerated the candidate for plagiarism after an examination.
Laschet is said to have copied the passage in the book that appeared after the clue from a contribution by the political scientist and ex-CSU minister of education, Hans Maier. Laschet is supposed to have taken over half a page from “On the Coexistence of Religions in Germany” without quoting. Weber’s digital check showed the location, but the metadata of the PDF for Maier’s text indicated 2011 as the publication date – two years after the publication of Laschet’s book. Maier had already given the text in the form of a speech at the “Day of Religions” in Stuttgart in 2008 and, at Weber’s request, even stated that it was published in 2006.
“Mr. Laschet now has a problem”, writes Weber on his blog. It is not yet as big as Frau Baerbock’s, but he will now have to answer quickly how this second position came about. “Has he deliberately plagiarized himself, has he lost track of things or has he trusted employees who have violated the citation requirement and have not mastered the source work?” Continues Weber.
Weber had made a number of text similarities between the book of the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock “Now. How we renew our country” and other publications public. Weber could not understand at all why such passages were in an almost 300-page book. “With Ms. Baerbock it was still possible to explain it with a hush-hush method after her nomination. But at that time there was no tactical reason for the book” The Rising Republic “that I could explain,” writes Weber.
A comparison by the plagiarism searcher Martin Heidingsfelder had previously been published on Twitter, which showed a striking similarity between a passage in the Laschet book and another publication. The scientist concerned Karsten Weitzenegger had made it public. Laschet admitted a mistake, apologized and announced an examination of his book.
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