Among the unfortunates suffering collateral damage from the plagiarism allegations that forced Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to resign as defence minister of Germany is Johannes Hahn, the European commissioner for regional policy.
Hahn, a former science and research minister in the Austrian government, submitted his doctoral dissertation, a philosophical approach to the city, way back in 1987, when there was no worldwide web and no Google, but the Guttenberg affair has prompted the muckraking tabloid Österreich to revive squabbling about the quality of Hahn's contribution to philosophy.
Hahn has rejected as “nonsense” suggestions that parts of his dissertation might not be entirely original. The suggestions first surfaced in 2007, when Hahn entered the government as science minister.
Hahn's main defence is that technology was not as advanced when he wrote his dissertation: he told Österreich this week that he wrote the first draft by hand before typing it up. “Nobody copies hundreds of pages by hand,” Hahn said.
But technology has moved on since 1987, or indeed 2007, and an enterprising individual has now gone to the trouble of scanning Hahn's typed dissertation and posting it on the internet. (And not a moment too soon. Since Monday, the dissertation has no longer been available in Austria's National Library.) New technology will soon reveal whether there is any substance to the allegations against Hahn.
Entre Nous conspiracy theory: this may all be a ploy by the European Commission's regional policy enthusiasts to make people adopt a philosophical approach to the city.
