Several German news sites are telling this story, and I'll lay it out as simple as I can.
The Green Party Chancellor candidate....Annalena Baerbock....at some point around sixteen years ago, chose to get into a master's degree program at the Free University of Berlin (degree had to do with humanitarian aid/natural disasters).
She wasn't married at the time, and the word 'free' in the university isn't totally correct. There was a cost factor, and I suspect it's mostly related to living expenses/food/room/etc.
So Baerbock applied for a scholarship deal....getting around 40,000 Euro (roughly $45k dollars).
Stuff happened, and somewhere in the first six months of this....things didn't work out and she moved on (without a degree). Around 18 months later, she was voted into a Bundestag situation.
The 40k Euro? Never paid back. No one ever said a word about that.
Somehow, this got dug up in the past week or so in Germany, and openly discussed. Some folks think it's not right.....and she ought to pay the money back. Some don't care....mostly because they know there are probably thousands of people in that type of position.
Politically, it's a fair sized problem to deal with. On top of the plagiarism situation, it paints a negative image of her character. But at this point, it probably doesn't matter....she's not going to resign from running.
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