It’s just a suspicion at first. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the Axel Springer Group, is said to have copied his doctoral thesis and violated scientific standards in the references to the literature. Plagiarism checkers accuse him of that, as reported by “Spiegel”.
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At the beginning of February 2022, Martin Heidingsfelder, one of the plagiarism hunters, called on the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main to carry out a formal investigation: “The bibliographical references are poor, the sources of the information are unclear, the secondary sources used for the information are often not sufficiently named,” according to him Accusations. The university has set up an examination committee; much will depend on whether further abnormalities are discovered during the investigation. “The examination process is still ongoing,” said a university spokesman when asked by Spiegel.
Döpfner is silent on the allegations
Mathias Döpfner himself did not want to comment on the process. Springer said: “Mathias Döpfner has been informed about the process. He has full confidence in the work of the Frankfurt University commission.” Among other things, Döpfner is said to have used a scientist with Nazi sympathies. The Austrian plagiarism searcher Stefan Weber speaks of a “structural plagiarism” and comes to 28 suspicious passages in the dissertation. Döpfner’s work dates from 1990 and dealt with “Music criticism in Germany after 1945. Tendencies in terms of content and form, a critical analysis”.
Döpfner is CEO of Axel Springer SE and also President of the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers.
