Germany’s Hanover Medical School said yesterday that Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen plagiarised parts of her thesis, but allowed her to keep her doctorate because there was no “deliberate deception”.
Von der Leyen had been caught in a political storm over media reports that she plagiarised portions of her doctoral thesis, a charge that had previously brought down other high-level German politicians.
In a bid to clear her name, she had asked the Hanover Medical School, where she obtained her doctorate in the 1990s, to reevaluate the paper.
After months of examination, however, the medical school’s president Christopher Baum said yesterday: “The Senate decided ... with a majority of seven to one votes to not strip the (doctorate) title.”
Although von der Leyen was found to have plagiarised some portions, the committee found this to be an “error but not misconduct”.
“It’s an error in the form of plagiarism in which paragraphs of text were used without correct identification of the authors,” said Baum, adding however that “the pattern of plagiarism does not point to deliberate deception”.
The school’s president also added these errors did not compromise the “scientific value” of the thesis.