After his exonerating opinion for Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, the Austrian media scientist Stefan Weber corrected himself.

He now thinks it is quite possible, in Laschet's book published in 2009 with the title “The Rising Republic.

Immigration as an opportunity “to find more plagiarism.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for the “educational worlds”.

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Weber had changed a message from a reader of his blog who had drawn his attention to another unassigned quote.

It is said to be almost half a book page that Laschet is said to have taken over from the Munich political scientist and former CSU minister of culture and science, Hans Maier.

The reader dated the origin of the text to a speech that Maier had given in 2008 at the “Day of Religions” in Stuttgart.

Weber regrets the quick shot

In an email Maier told Weber that the oldest printing of the text can be found in the Catholic magazine Communio (35, 2006).

“In fact, there are correspondences with the text by Armin Laschet.

However, the examples he cited are generally accessible facts, ”Maier wrote to Weber.

Weber meanwhile regretted "the hasty step to the public before carrying out a 'deep drilling', which is now taking place".

With the plagiarism software Turnitin, which is one of the most reliable on the market, he was unable to identify any plagiarism pattern.

The spot had been marked, but was dated to the year 2011.Since Laschet's book was published in 2009, Weber paid no attention to the reference to the year 2011.

Plagiarism checkers have to "google" manually

Weber confirmed to the FAZ that he would now examine the book in as much detail as that of the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock. He has worked on 91 pages so far and there are four other suspect sites. Laschet's book has 300 pages. Weber also apologized publicly to the plagiarism searcher Martin Heidingsfelder because it was not the author, Karsten Weizenegger, whom he contacted who had published the plagiarism. Weber also pointed out the methodological problem that plagiarism checkers have to "google" a text manually in 2021 because Google does not provide an affordable interface.

After the further discovery, Weber says, "Possibly Laschet behaves to Baerbock like Schavan to Guttenberg". A single plagiarism, which is a few lines long, could still pass as an editorial oversight by a supplier, which, from Weber's point of view, would have to be named. However, there is only one name on the spine of Laschet's book.