The University of Bayreuth announced on Friday that it was investigating “suspicion of plagiarism.” Weidel rejected the allegations in a video on the X platform (formerly Twitter). She spoke of a campaign once morest her personally, given the relatively high poll numbers for the AfD.
The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (“SZ”/online Freitag) had previously reported that two plagiarism detectors had contacted the University of Bayreuth. They therefore accuse Weidel of not or not sufficiently identifying the sources of individual passages, connected sentences or even sentence fragments in her doctoral thesis from 2011, which was awarded “Summa cum laude”. The newspaper has the submitted text.
The University of Bayreuth announced: “The suspected plagiarism report has now been submitted to the Commission for Scientific Integrity of the University of Bayreuth. It will decide whether there will be a formal investigation.” This decision is not expected before the end of January.
The “SZ” quoted the lead author of the text submitted to the university: “We do not see any large-scale plagiarism in Ms. Weidel’s dissertation, but many small fragments of plagiarism. There is a suspicion of plagiarism here.” According to the newspaper, both authors want to remain anonymous – for fear of possible dangers to themselves and their relatives. But they are known to the newspaper.
Weidel explained in her video: “My doctoral thesis has probably already been checked by dozens of plagiarism examiners with as much detail and attentiveness as it did without results. But now unknown people have sent the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” an anonymous report in which there is no classic plagiarism, but there is Citation errors are said to have been discovered, which were inflated into plagiarism.” The “political motivation” is obvious. “Meanwhile, I have requested an independent statement from an academic who concludes, and I quote, “that the allegations are rejected as absurd and the plagiarism allegations are considered unfounded.” According to “SZ”, the scientist is one of the authors whom Weidel is said to have used illegally. She herself said that she was calm regarding further developments.
Weidel is also the leader of the AfD in the German Bundestag. In nationwide surveys, the party is currently at 20 to 23 percent, second only to the Union and ahead of the SPD and the Greens.
