Friday, March 6
On Wednesday, it was reported that the Minister of State for Culture, Wolfram Weimer, removed three bookstores from the prize list for the German bookshop prize, Deutschen Buchhandlungspreis. The bookshops affected are Rote Straße in Göttingen, Golden Shop in Bremen and Zur schwankenden Weltkugel on Kastanienallee in Berlin. The store owners were justifiably irritated by the decision, which also meant they didn’t receive the prize money.
Wolfram Weimer justified his decision by citing the results of a review by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In reply, the authors’ association PEN Berlin asked for further information, including what exactly the minister means by “constitutional protection-relevant findings”.
Days later, the Berlin bookshop, Zur schwankenden Weltkugel, have now declared that they are taking legal action against the Minister of State for Culture. This was declared in a joint statement with the other two bookstores who were taken off the list.
The three bookstores were submitted by an expert jury for the German Bookstore Prize because they offered a literary assortment or cultural event programme, or they were involved in the field of reading and literature promotion. Their lawyers make clear that they deserved the prize, which is why they’re suing the Minister of State for Culture for withdrawing a prize decided by a jury.
In addition, the lawyers want to have the so-called Haber process reviewed by the courts, concerning the turn to the protection of the constitution before the allocation of state funding. Lawsuits are to be filed early next week.
