Germany’s Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has fiercely rejected allegations revealed in media reports that she plagiarised portions of her doctoral thesis, a charge that has already brought down other high-level German leaders.
According to a report in Der Spiegel weekly, dozens of passages in her dissertation clash with academic standards, with over 40 percent of the document allegedly containing plagiarised text.
However, von der Leyen “not only rejects these accusations she has... asked the medical school in Hanover,” where she got her doctorate in the 1990s “to have it evaluated by a competent and independent commission,” a defence ministry spokesman told Der Spiegel.
He added that the ministry has been aware of the allegations since August.
Der Spiegel’s report cites findings from anti-plagiarism website “VroniPlag Wiki”, which tracks and counts cases of academic misappropriation.
According to the website, “elements of plagiarism were found on 27 of 62 pages” of her thesis, which is a “proportion of 43.5 percent.”