"The letter that Ian T. Baldwin, director of a prestigious research institute in Jena, Germany, received on January 9 from the Thuringian state police informed him that he was being charged with a crime. The letter was straightforward enough, but the crime was bafflingly obscure.
"It said I was being charged with Missbrauchs von Titeln, or misuse of title, and that I had to appear at the police station," Mr. Baldwin said today by telephone. "I looked up on the Web what Missbrauchs von Titeln meant. It's used for people who impersonate police officers." If convicted, Mr. Baldwin, who directs the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, could face a hefty fine and as much as a year in jail. Mr. Baldwin's crime, under a Nazi-era law governing the use of academic titles, was to assume that his doctorate from Cornell University entitled him to call himself "Doctor" in Germany. The honorific, apparently, is reserved for recipients of doctoral degrees from German universities. (more) http://tinyurl.com/ypxd79 http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=4134&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
