Ex-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
Graichen has the doctoral thesis checked for allegations
Patrick Graichen wants to have his doctoral thesis checked because of suspected violations of citation rules. photo
© Hendrik Schmidt/dpa/Archive
On Wednesday, Habeck announced Graichen’s resignation as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Now Graichen is in focus again. This time it’s about his doctoral thesis.
The ex-secretary of state for economic affairs, Patrick Graichen, has his doctoral thesis reviewed by the University of Heidelberg after suspected violations of citation rules. He had already asked the university to check it, Graichen told the “Bild am Sonntag”.
At the same time he rejected the suspicion against himself. The points at issue all came from the historical reference to the actual scientific core topic of the work entitled “Municipal energy policy and the environmental movement”. “In my opinion, the scientific core of the work is not affected by the criticism expressed,” he argued.
Plagiarism expert: At least 30 references are missing
Plagiarism expert Jochen Zenthöfer told the newspaper: “There are 30 plagiarism fragments, some of which consist of several sentences.” They came from two essays by the environmental sociologist Karl-Werner Brand. It is generally quoted, “but only in very few places, at least 30 references are missing”. Zenthöfer judged: “Violations of good scientific practice are evident, and intent to deceive is also obvious.”
Zenthöfer compared the scope of the posts with the doctoral thesis by CSU General Secretary Huber. His Munich University had subsequently complained about considerable scientific deficiencies, but saw no proven deception and did not withdraw the title. Nevertheless, Huber refrains from leading him.
Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced Graichen’s resignation as State Secretary on Wednesday because he had not sufficiently separated private and professional life.