The Guttenberg plagiarism scandal refers to the German political scandal that led to the resignation of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg as Minister of Defence of Germany over the extensive plagiarism found in his first doctoral dissertation. Accusations of plagiarism in Guttenberg's dissertation began to be made public in February 2011. The dissertation, (), had been the basis of Guttenberg's 2007 doctoral academic degree from the University of Bayreuth. Guttenberg at first denied intentional plagiarism, calling the accusations "absurd," but acknowledged that he may have made errors in his footnotes. In addition, it emerged that Guttenberg had requested a report from the Bundestag's research department, which he had then inserted into his dissertation without attribution. On 23 February 2011, Guttenberg apologized in parliament for flaws in his dissertation, but denied intentional deception and denied the use of a ghostwriter.
On 23 February 2011, the University of Bayreuth rescinded Guttenberg's doctoral degree. 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. On 1 March 2011, Guttenberg announced his resignation as Minister of Defense, from his seat in the Bundestag, and from all other political offices.
In May 2011, a University of Bayreuth commission tasked with investigating Guttenberg's dissertation came to the conclusion that Guttenberg had engaged in intentional deception in the writing of his dissertation, and had violated standards of good academic practice. The commission found that he had included borrowed passages throughout his dissertation without citation, and had modified those passages in order to conceal their origin.
In November 2011, the prosecution in Hof discontinued the criminal proceedings for copyright violations against Guttenberg on condition of Guttenberg paying €20,000 to a charity. 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.
Background
Guttenberg studied law at the University of Bayreuth, where he passed the first legal state examination in 1999. In 2007, he was awarded a doctoral degree in law, under the supervision of Peter Häberle, with a dissertation on the development of constitutional law in the United States and the European Union. The doctoral dissertation was titled (), and was graded by the university with summa cum laude.
Loss of doctorate and resignation Fischer-Lescano plagiarism review On 12 February 2011 Andreas Fischer-Lescano, professor of law at the University of Bremen, prepared a review of Guttenberg's dissertation for the left-leaning German legal quarterly . Fischer-Lescano was co-editor of this publication. During a reference check he discovered an article of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), published in 2003, of which passages had been included in Guttenberg's dissertation without citation. After this discovery Fischer-Lescano performed further searches and discovered seven more passages lacking proper citation. He discussed the findings with the other editors of and they decided that their publication, with only 1,800 subscribers, was not the appropriate forum to make the findings public. So Fisher-Lescano contacted the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich.
On 15 February 2011, the newspaper contacted law professor Diethelm Klippel, the Bayreuth University ombudsman, and informed him of the plagiarism charges. Klippel had also been on the review committee for Guttenberg's doctoral dissertation. On the same day the newspaper informed Guttenberg and gave him a few hours to respond to the allegations. Guttenberg was on an official visit in Poland that day. Fischer-Lescano informed Guttenberg's research supervisors Peter Häberle and Rudolf Streinz about the charges.
Guttenberg offers resignation On 16 February 2011 the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article reporting the allegations against Guttenberg. 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.
In a first statement Guttenberg, who was still in Poland, called the charge of his dissertation being plagiarised "abstruse". He insisted that the dissertation was his own achievement and that none of his employees helped him to draft it. The University of Bayreuth delegated the allegations against Guttenberg to its Commission on Professional Self Regulation in Science. On 16 February 2011, after his return from Poland, Guttenberg left for a surprise visit to German soldiers in Afghanistan. He spent the night in the military camp OP North in the war zone Baghlan province. Although the visit had been planned weeks in advance, allegations were raised that this trip was some kind of "getaway" for Guttenberg.
Guttenberg returned the next day, 17 February 2011, and had a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel. His offer to resign was refused by Merkel. The same day the University of Bayreuth sent a letter to Guttenberg conceding him two weeks to respond to the plagiarism allegations, and launched as a crowdsourced platform for internet users to submit claims of unattributed work in Guttenberg's dissertation, with GuttenPlag giving rise to VroniPlag the following month. A scheduled speech at an election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt was cancelled by Guttenberg because of his meeting with Angela Merkel.
The district attorney's office in Hof, Bavaria, announced it would wait for the results of the Bayreuth University's examination of Guttenberg's dissertation and confirmed that two criminal complaints had been filed against Guttenberg, one regarding possible copyright violations and another on a possible false statutory declaration. The second was immediately declined by the attorney due to apparent insubstantiality. The same day the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported its findings that Guttenberg had used texts of 19 authors without correct attribution.
Chancellor Angela Merkel declared: "He has my full confidence for his work, and this work is important. He has my support […] and we must wait until the university has completed its examination of the allegations". In an interview, the chancellor attested Guttenberg had a "head-on approach" on the allegations.
Use of Parliamentary Research Service On 19 February 2011, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Guttenberg had used works of the German Parliamentary Research Service (PRS) without proper attribution. Any publication of PRS papers requires prior approval by the German Bundestag's departmental management. During the weekend of 20 February 2011, Guttenberg re-read his dissertation to examine Guttenplag's findings as well as other findings.
The next day in a letter Guttenberg asked the University of Bayreuth to revoke his title (rather than degree), 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".
Also on 21 February 2011, chancellor Merkel reiterated her support for Guttenberg and told journalists,
This statement caused wide-spread anger and condemnation in the German academic community.
Annette Schavan, German minister of Education and Research, who two years later had to resign herself because of plagiarism related to her own dissertation, declared that she didn't "consider the incident to be a trifle", because "intellectual theft is not a small thing. The protection of intellectual property is a higher good." The same day it became known that Guttenberg had used another PRS paper without proper citation. That evening Guttenberg attended a campaign event in Kelkheim and stated that he would give up his doctoral title permanently. "Over the weekend I had another look at my doctorate thesis", Guttenberg declared and continued "I lost sight of the sources in one or two places. I wrote this piece of work myself and I stand by it, but I also stand by the rubbish I wrote." Guttenberg admitted "serious mistakes", which had not been made intentionally but "do not meet the ethical code of science", and apologized to people who had been hurt by his work. Guttenberg called his decision to give up the title (rather than degree) "painful". He rejected all speculation about his resignation and declared: "I will perform my duties with all my powers". The University of Bayreuth confirmed the same day that Guttenberg had asked them to revoke his title. Chancellor Merkel approved his decision to give up his title, a spokesman declared.
Distinct criticism on Guttenberg's crisis management was passed by Norbert Lammert, President of the German Bundestag. In an interview on 22 February 2013, Lammert also expressed his doubts about the reliability of the university's awarding process.
Loss of doctorate Parliamentary questioning On 23 February 2011, Lammert presided over a parliamentary questioning in the Bundestag on Guttenberg's use of PRS papers in his dissertation. During the questioning, politicians from the opposition called for Guttenberg's resignation and accused him of cheating, lying, and intentions to deceive. In his reply Guttenberg again apologized and admitted: "I wrote a dissertation that was obviously flawed". He described himself as "a man of mistakes and weaknesses" and stated "I did not deliberately cheat, but made serious errors". 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." 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. According to accusations of misusing the German Parliamentary Research Service (PRS), Guttenberg pointed out that all studies had been related to his political work. He noted that all papers had been cited, but without the authors' names, as they had been employees of the PRS. 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.
Rescinding of degree On the same day the doctoral commission of Bayreuth University revoked Guttenberg's doctoral degree. The University's president Rüdiger Bormann declared that Guttenberg had "objectively not conformed" to academic standards. According to Bormann, this fast revocation was possible because of Guttenberg's statement. The doctoral commission made no judgment as to whether Guttenberg had acted intentionally, something that led to criticism. Such an investigation would "surely have been an extended process", Bormann declared, which was unnecessary after Guttenberg's request for a withdrawal of his title. Further inquiries would be done by the Commission of Professional Self Conduct in Science, Bormann announced. Chancellor Merkel commented on the revocation of Guttenberg's title as being "in line of what he had requested".
Further investigations