University rules German ex-minister cheated on thesis

May 6, 2011, 13:47 GMT

Bayreuth, Germany - A former German defence minister who gave up his job in March over a plagiarism scandal did indeed cheat on the doctoral thesis at the root of the controversy, according to an announcement Friday by the university that gave him his title.

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the former German defence minister, applied in February for his 2006 degree to be revoked and resigned his portfolio in March after researchers discovered unacknowledged copying in the dissertation.

The University of Bayreuth is to publish a 40-page report on the case on Wednesday. In a brief advance statement, the university rejected Guttenberg's claim that the copying was inadvertent.

An academic review said, 'After a thorough investigation of allegations against his dissertation, the committee finds that obviously Guttenberg gravely violated the standards of good academic practice and deliberately cheated.'

It said the places that counted as plagiarism were scattered throughout the thesis, which dealt with the European Union's vain bid to adopt a constitution.

He had repeatedly claimed authorship of other people's work by slightly altering the original word order or using synonyms.

This was especially evident in the integration into the text of a paper by the federal parliamentary research service.

The report also rebuked the doctoral supervisor, Peter Haeberle, and the second assessor, Rudolf Streinz, for awarding a first class, or 'summa cum laude,' to the thesis. The panel said it could not see any outstanding ideas in the thesis to justify this.

Guttenberg, 39, who was rated Germany's most popular politician during his short cabinet career, has vanished from public life. He is a baron with a family castle in Bavaria and is married to a descendant of Otto von Bismarck, a former German chancellor.

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