Bär warns of “great damage” from the AfD and promises a support network

Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) has warned of “great damage” to important research institutions in Saxony-Anhalt if an AfD government ends funding. “There are many important research institutions in Saxony-Anhalt – above all the Bauhaus and the Leopoldina,” Bär told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “If all funding were to stop because there is no more money from the state budget, great damage could be caused.”

The Leopoldina, for example, would then not be able to save its library with the original writings of Albert Einstein, said Bär. “The federal government and the other 15 states couldn’t compensate for that.”

“We won’t abandon science”

This is not easy for other universities, but if academic freedom is impaired, “a cross-border support network” must come into play, said Bär. “We won’t let science down,” promised the minister.

The AfD has announced a “new patriotic cultural policy” if it takes over government. In the past, the party had described the Bauhaus, which is a UNESCO world cultural heritage site and also shaped Saxony-Anhalt, as a “misguided path of modernity” and criticized its “one-sided glorification”.