20260307 Kulturkampf auch in Deutschland

07.03.2026 Kulturkampf auch in Deutschland

A touch of McCarthy

The fact that books on women's rights, sex education, and the history of slavery in the US are disappearing from schools and universities in Florida (and some other particularly right-wing states) is outrageous, but after 14 months of Trump's reign, it is "normal". However, we should urgently counteract a similar development in Germany before it also becomes "normal". Netzpoltik.org reports:

Recently, Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer (independent) had several bookstores investigated by the German domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz, to check whether they had been infiltrated by "extremists".

The constitutional protection authorities reported their findings, and as a result, "The Golden Shop" in Bremen, "Rote Straße" in Göttingen, and the bookstore "Zur schwankenden Weltkugel" in Berlin were excluded from the German Bookstore Award. On what legal basis does a Minister of State for Culture have the authority to instruct the Office for the Protection of the Constitution? Well, there is no real legal basis other than the so-called Haber proceedings from 2017. According to this, "federal agencies can have organizations, individuals, and events that are to receive state funding investigated by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution by means of a request".

The former Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber had sent the Haber procedure as "contrary to data protection law".

Prevent it before it starts! Never again is now!