Cultural Committee calls for clarification on the exclusion of bookstores from the bookstore price

The chairman of the cultural committee in the Bundestag, Sven Lehmann, is once again demanding clarification from Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer about the exclusion of three bookstores from the German Bookstore Prize. The files that have now become known raise considerable questions about Weimer's presentation, explained the Green Party politician in Berlin. “Weimer must now finally reveal who called in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and for what reasons.”

Weimer had the three bookstores removed from the list of stores that a jury had recommended for the German Bookstore Prize because of “findings relevant to the protection of the constitution.” It was never made public what was going on against the stores. Lehmann recalled Weimer's statement that his specialist officials had fundamental doubts about the worthiness of the three bookstores.

The news portal "t-online", however, quoted documents saying that Weimer's responsible department had expressly recommended following the independent jury's vote and awarding all proposed bookstores. The files also contain references to a political orientation and to the range of books on left-wing theory, queer life and feminism, explained Lehmann. “This raises the central question of who actually decided to involve the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”

When asked, a spokeswoman for the Minister of State for Culture said that the report from “t-online” did not contradict the company's previous representation. The template referred to in the article contains the original jury recommendations for the bookstore prize. “It was only later in the ministerial decision-making process that information emerged from publicly available sources that led to a reassessment of the facts and subsequently to the application of the so-called Haber procedure in the three cases in question.”

The spokeswoman explained that the house would not comment on details of the process. The cultural committee chairman Lehmann, as a parliamentarian, has now officially asked Weimer's authorities. Left-wing MP David Schliesing also raised new questions about the process.