Götz Frömming, May 14, 2025, Cultural Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 109-110. 

Right honorable Frau Vice-president. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Immediately after me, the new Culture State Minister Wolfram Weimer will here make his first speech. I can say: We are very curious [gespannt], Herr Weimer. In the run up, it was reported that you are a conservative man and that here was negotiated an ideological decision to now name you Culture Minister. The talk was even of a shift to the right [Rechtsruck] and the beginning of a new Kulturkampf.

We find that astonishing in view of the fact that you replace Claudia Roth. More ideological than the previous culture policy under Claudia Roth, it can scarcely be, ladies and gentlemen. The talk of a shift to the right in the culture policy is therefore pure hypocrisy. A shift to the right considered from the standpoint of a Claudia Roth, that would be nothing further than a normalization. 

In fact in regards these accusations, it’s about the money. The culture scene is highly subventioned, without tax money it is scarcely viable. The Spiegel interpreted the naming of Weimer as “a prolongation of the minor inquiry” of the Union to the Federal government which is known under the shorthand, “551 questions”. Now the Federal government could itself answer these questions. We will remind you not to forget that.

We certainly expect from the new Federal government no shift to the right, ladies and gentlemen. An escape from the left would be fully sufficient. It would be fully sufficient if no more tax money flows into extreme leftist propaganda which passes itself off as art. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): So, really! What is that then?

 I know that you here feel yourselves addressed; that is also thus correct. 

The culture policy in the era of Frau Roth was not merely leftist, ladies and gentlemen, it was anti-German, anti-Christian, and was directed – we have previously heard – also against Israel. What we, with the documenta and during the Berlinale, needed to experience in anti-semitic invective was unbearable. It has never come to a real reappraisal of those events. 

Much thereof speaks that in regards to what we have seen, only the tip of the iceberg is dealt with. The leftist anti-semitism has more deeply penetrated the culture scene than many want to admit. Were it an anti-semitism coming from the right, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure Heaven and Hell would have long since been set in motion against it. 

We therefore welcome that the new State Minister, as a first act in office, has separated himself from the upper officials and confidants of his predecessor – I now leave the names aside. Their anti-Israel attitude was “known to the scene”, as the Judische Allgemeine recently wrote. 

So as to name one additional positive point: The agreement with the house of Hohenzollern on the storage place of art treasures is a good sign. Since let us look back: Frau Roth and the Greens wanted, as is known, to break up and re-name the Prussian Cultural Foundation. It meant nothing other than to eradicate Prussia. Frau Baerbock even let the Bismarck room in the Foreign Office be re-named. Frau Roth wanted to fade out [überblenden] the Christian inscription on the Berliner Schloss and have the cross on the roof preferably dismantled. 

Ladies and gentlemen, to the Greens, all is a horror which is German. Peoples and cultures they only accept when they are as foreign and exotic as possible. Yet who does not love his own, ladies and gentlemen, he cannot also respect the foreign. 

            Alice Weidel (AfD): Exactly!

 Herr Weimer, you see in Christianity, as you formulated, the opportunity for a “cultural renaissance of the West”. You thus clearly have concepts different from your predecessor and we are therein very curious. Primarily, we are curious as to how you will get along with Frau Nancy Faeser, who now as a kind of revenge of the SPD could possibly overtake the chairmanship of the Culture Committee so as to be able to there continue her fight against so-called disinformation which, ja, principally comes from her house. That will become an exciting show. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): What then is that for an unashamed imputation?

 Ladies and gentlemen, it is besides no political goal of the AfD to generally abolish the cultural subventions which were here and there maintained. It is merely our goal to end the one-sided political enlistment of theaters and other cultural institutions. We want to no rightist theater. We also want no leftist theater. We want an independent theater. 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What you want is nevertheless not to be reconciled                        with artistic and cultural freedom! 

Ladies and gentlemen, the leftist daily newspaper taz fears, following the change of government, a headwind for many leftist cultural projects. We do not fear that. We even hope for it. To stay in the metaphor, ladies and gentlemen: He can really sail who also comes forward with a headwind. In this sense: Herr State Minister, make a steady wind [machen Sie ordentlich Wind]! In this regard, you can count on us. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]