The question of whether Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf plagiarized remains to be clarified
Has Stefan Weber retracted his "plagiarism allegations" against Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf? Not at all, the "plagiarism hunter" clarifies in a guest article for WELT – and explains what investigation he now considers necessary.
Hopefully, politics and the media aren't always as superficial as they are in the Brosius-Gersdorf case. Initially, it was rumored in Berlin that "accusations of plagiarism" had caused the CDU to quickly rethink its appointment on the morning of the judicial election. Yet the day before , in my "Blog for Academic Integrity," I had merely pointed out numerous textual similarities between Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf's dissertation and the habilitation thesis of her husband, the legal scholar Hubertus Gersdorf. It remains unclear how these textual similarities came about.
Then, on the day of the decision, politicians and the media almost as quickly claimed that I had retracted the "plagiarism allegations," which meant they had collapsed. Again, this was false. I had merely pointed out that there are various explanations for textual similarities—and that a detailed analysis of these textual similarities is necessary to determine whether they constitute plagiarism.
If one empirically establishes textual similarities between two books by different authors, written in parallel periods, there are several possible explanations: A may have copied from B, B may have copied from A—and the other may or may not have known about this. A and B may have worked together on the text, whatever that may mean in detail. Or B may have been A's "ghostwriter"—or vice versa.
In any case, something is wrong when such similarities are found. The basic rule in science is: Everything copied must be documented, unless it is common knowledge. Literal similarities in science therefore inherently require clarification. We will provide this clarification in the coming days – and also question both authors about the 17 percent similarity between the two texts, according to software comparison. Using "authorship verification," we will be able to determine the text and source flow with some degree of certainty. The question of whether or not Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf plagiarized on a large scale remains to be clarified – at this point, it can neither be affirmed nor denied with certainty.
Plagiarism is a serious problem in the academic system. Unnoticed plagiarism, unnoticed ghostwriting, and unnoticed hidden collaboration (also known as "collusion") result from the fact that academic writings are far too extensive and no one reads them anymore. A false fetish for quantity has reduced academic publishing to absurdity, including in terms of the number of publications. My colleague Volker Rieble has spoken out about this like no other.
Another, perhaps even more fatal, consequence of this ignorance of the content of the academic system is that nonsense can flourish unnoticed. Or that tendencies that are completely contrary to our value system can spread, such as the recent Muslim gender segregation in lecture halls .
The unnoticed substantive abyss in the Brosius-Gersdorf case, quite independent of the obvious textual similarities in her dissertation, is the second dimension. Around 300 scholars and (former) judges are now confronting a woman about whom apparently no one knew what she truly wanted or what made her tick, because no one had read her writings in detail – a failure of German legal scholarship.
In an article for a portal called "Gesundheitsblog" (Health Blog) dated February 20, 2023, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf and a co-author, her research assistant, wrote the following sentence: "The introduction of a reasonable and equal-conforming new regulation requiring insured persons to contribute to the costs of their corona-related medical treatment in the event of non-vaccination against Covid-19 is constitutionally feasible."
Feasible, in this case, means nothing other than the following: Anyone who has not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, has had a Covid-19 infection, and subsequently becomes seriously ill with the most terrible and currently most publicly ignored disease of our time, namely the neuroimmunological disease ME/CFS, should also have to pay extra for it: a kind of penalty payment for the terminally ill.
These sentences are also horrific: "Contributing to the treatment costs of their Covid-19 illness by unvaccinated insured persons is a suitable way to achieve this objective. On the one hand, this would increase the willingness to be vaccinated, resulting in significantly fewer severe Covid-19 illnesses and long-term Covid cases, and thus lower costs for the statutory health insurance system."
I haven't read anything into this; it's written there expressis verbis exactly as it is. If the Church and the CDU didn't stand up against such misanthropic ideas, something would be wrong in this country.
I'd like to clarify a few things here, because the coronavirus debate is always a highly emotional one: I've been vaccinated against the coronavirus four times. I've survived two infections myself. In my circle of friends, there's a woman who was athletic and highly committed, full of life, mentally and physically, until she contracted ME/CFS at the age of forty. She now spends at least 23 hours a day in bed and suffers excruciatingly. Just a few days ago, Karl Lauterbach spoke on X about a similarly shocking case ; the woman has since committed assisted suicide. Friedrich Merz was also interviewed about ME/CFS in ARD's summer interview over the weekend.
According to the plans outlined by Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf in the “Health Blog,” these two incredibly unfortunate women would have had to pay a financial “penalty” in addition to their suffering – if they had not been vaccinated and their illness had been “coronavirus-related.”
In a few weeks, we'll surely have a clearer view of the plagiarism issue. But that seems secondary to me at the moment. What's more important is that Brosius-Gersdorf's writings reveal a view of humanity that, at least for me, makes my blood run cold.
The author, Stefan Weber, is a private lecturer for media and communication theory at the University of Vienna, who received his habilitation in 2005. His most recent book, "Language, Humanity, Universe: Radical Lingualism 2," was published by Velbrück Wissenschaft. He is also known in the media as a "plagiarism hunter."
Die welt