Wolfram Weimer as Minister of Culture: Challenges for German Cultural Policy
None of his predecessors had been received in office with such tones. As soon as it was known that Wolfram Weimer at the request of Friedrich Merz Cultural workers have already put on a petition with the claim to reverse the personnel. A “conservative narrowing” of cultural policy is to be expected among Weimer, according to the reason; Thousands of signatures were quickly collected.
Since then there has been a lot of talk of the conservative turn that is to be carried out under Weimer. A fear that, above all, strikes the traditionally rather left -wing circles of the cultural business, which is among Weimer’s predecessor, the Greens Claudia Rothfelt in good hands. Beyond speculation, which are derived from previous statements of Weimer, such fears cannot be clearly grasped at the present time, especially not by the coalition agreement and its more vague formulations in the sub -point of culture. At his first appearances, Weimer himself avoided being a conservative hardliner.
The leading words of the Roth era will lose importance
Nevertheless, the political pitch below will be different than with its predecessor, especially where it is about financial support. The Roth era was characterized by leading words such as migration, gender, sustainability and the like. Under Weimer, the focus will be on such key points. It remains to be seen whether the new « conservative » lines are given instead.
It will be more interesting than the cultural promotion small, as Weimer does with those major topics in which Claudia Roth recently set plants-important topics because they radiate the international perception of German cultural policy. There is, for example, the restitution of Nazi robbery. Roth has launched the introduction of arbitration dishes. The work of the new minister will have to be measured by which this procedure should look concrete, whether it leads to more restitution.
How to deal with film funding in times of Trump?
Another major construction site is film funding, and it is still amended under Claudia Roth. How the planned tax incentives for film productions should be shaped at a time when the US President also threatens this industry with tariffs, as soon as a few film minutes come about outside the USA, will be another area of responsibility on which the previous media entrepreneur Weimer has to prove.
Finally a third, extremely sensitive field: anti -Semitism and culture. Claudia Roth has not always proven sensitivity, you remember the scandal at Documenta or the criticism of Israel’s Gaza War, which has been loud at the Berlinale. Anti-Semitic, generally inhuman projects, the black and red coalition does not want to promote, but at the same time also does not give art freedom through content specifications-a balancing act that has already stumbled the Berlin cultural senator Joe Chialo, which has long been a favorite for the Minister of Culture.
And beyond that? Wolfram Weimer should understand itself to promote art primarily from a stipulation: their aesthetic validity-which in no way excludes social-political relevance. If the “conservative turn” takes a look at such a kind, it would not be the worst about culture in the country.
