In the dispute over her book, the Greens' candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, admitted a mistake.
"In retrospect, it would certainly have been better if I had worked with a list of sources," she told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (Thursday).
She is accused of unmarked takeovers from other publications.
You have consciously resorted to publicly available sources, especially when it comes to facts, she said.
"But I take the criticism seriously."
In spite of the argument, Baerbock does not want to fall back into old friend-foe reflexes - even if it is sometimes difficult for her. "For more than three years in the party, we (the co-chairman) Robert Habeck and I have worked intensively on bridging rifts through a different address and attitude," she said. This type of communication is put to the test in a tough election campaign, precisely because of personal hostility. “I also slipped into old trenches for a moment,” she admitted. “It's about the opposite: to discuss the big questions of the future openly and broadly, hard and clear on the matter, but fair in tone and open to arguments.” This is how she wants to campaign.