Accusation of plagiarism against AfD leader Alice Weidel – University investigates her dissertation Missing boy (11) reappears after 6 years – he fled on foot through the Pyrenees

AfD chairman Alice Weidel’s dissertation is being re-examined following allegations of plagiarism. This is reported by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, citing the University of Bayreuth and two plagiarism detectors. In this, Alice Weidel is accused of taking external sources in her 2011 dissertation and not labeling them or not labeling them adequately.

The plagiarism detectors prepared a report on Weidel’s work and sent it to their university, the University of Bayreuth. «We do not see large-scale plagiarism in Ms. Weidel’s dissertation, but we do see many small fragments of plagiarism. There is a suspicion of plagiarism here,” the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” quotes the lead author. Accordingly, there are said to be 32 fragments of plagiarism and 18 incorrectly marked quotations in the work.

After an initial preliminary investigation, Weidel’s dissertation will now be further investigated and checked for possible plagiarism by a “Committee for Scientific Integrity” of the University of Bayreuth.

Weidel rejects accusations of plagiarism

Weidel’s dissertation was published under the title “The Pension System of the People’s Republic of China. Reform options from a regulatory perspective to increase risk resilience” and was awarded the highest degree “summa cum laude” – the icing on the cake for Weidel’s academic career. According to her own statements, she had previously obtained a “double degree in economics and business administration at the top of her year” at Bayreuth. However, if the allegations are confirmed during an investigation, the AfD chairman could lose her doctorate again.

When asked by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Weidel rejected the accusations of plagiarism. “My thesis has probably already been examined with as much attention by dozens of plagiarism checkers as it has been inconclusive,” she said. The accusations were based on an anonymous article, “which, while not classic plagiarism, claims to have discovered citation errors that were quickly inflated to alleged plagiarism,” she criticized.

According to the plagiarism seekers, Weidel’s alleged plagiarism involves text passages, sentences or even just sentence fragments that Weidel allegedly copied literally or in spirit without this being sufficiently clear. This is a violation in science, because science requires that authors always make clear whether something does not arise from their own intellectual achievements. This is done through direct quotations and usually footnotes.

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