Green candidate for chancellor: Plagiarism hunter raises allegations against Baerbock

The Austrian media scientist Weber accuses the Green Chancellor candidate Baerbock of having copied her new book. The Greens reject this and speak of character assassination.

The Austrian media scientist Stefan Weber accuses the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock of having copied her book – which the Greens categorically reject. In a blog post, Weber alleges that Baerbock did not write some of the formulations in the book. “And if you take it seriously, there are also several copyright violations.”

A Green spokesman said on Tuesday: “This is an attempt at character assassination.” Baerbock turned on the lawyer Christian Schertz, who specializes in media law.

“A non-fiction book, not a dissertation”

Baerbock’s book “Now. How We Renew our Land” was published on June 21st. It is not an academic text for which strict standards of academic work apply. In the 240-page book, Baerbock spreads green political concepts and combines them with personal experiences. She does not use footnotes with which she could refer to sources. Weber also admits that. “A non-fiction book by a politician at Ullstein-Verlag is not a dissertation,” he writes. But: “Text plagiarism is not ethically correct and has already been rightly criticized in non-fiction books.”

The media scientist Weber, who has been dealing with inaccuracies in Baerbock’s curriculum vitae since May, lists several passages of text with parallels to other publications in his article.

Weber cites a passage on page 174 of Baerbock’s book as an example. There she wrote about the EU’s eastward expansion in 2004: “The EU grew from 15 to 25 members – and welcomed around 75 million new Union citizens.” The Federal Agency for Civic Education puts it very similarly in an article on the subject: “The EU grew from 15 to 25 members – and welcomed around 75 million new Union citizens. About half of them lived in Poland.”

Elsewhere, Baerbock praises the advantages of wood as a raw material for building houses and names three planned massive wooden buildings in Amsterdam, Chicago and Tokyo, information that can also be found in a “Spiegel” article from 2019.

Greens speak of character assassination

Weber is trying to “maliciously” damage Baerbock’s reputation, said the Greens spokesman. “The passages described are generally accessible facts or known green positions.” In a statement sent by the Greens press office, attorney Schertz stated: “I cannot begin to recognize a copyright infringement, since the few passages referred to are nothing more than the reproduction of generally known facts and political views.”

The Ullstein-Verlag, which published the book, protested against the allegations and argued similarly. “The manuscript of Annalena Baerbock’s book has been carefully edited by the publisher,” said the publisher. “The listing of generally accessible facts is just as little protected by copyright as the simple formulations with which such facts are conveyed. We cannot detect any copyright infringement.” As is usual with non-academic works, the book does not contain a list of sources.

Resolute response from the party

The Greens spokesman called the allegations absurd: “Which states were accepted as part of the EU’s eastward expansion, how the number of members has increased as a result or what the largest timber construction projects are is a general fact and not plagiarism.” Weber sees it differently: It’s not just about factual matches, but about the linguistic casting.

Compared to previous allegations against Baerbock, the party leadership reacted this time with the utmost determination. In an email to supporters with the subject “This is character assassination!” Federal Managing Director Michael Kellner wrote that it was a campaign and suggested: “Tweet this yourself or retweet and show full solidarity with Annalena!”

Weber told the dpa news agency that he had examined the book on his own account and that it was not a paid job. “I got stuck with the Baerbock topic because it brings together a lot.”