Sarah Wedl-Wilson, Berlin’s Senator for Culture, requested her dismissal from office this morning following findings regarding a funding scandal she was responsible for. Over the past five months, she was involved in frequent controversies regarding the artistic projects she approved government funding to. The Court of Auditors was called in to investigate the matter and found out the Senator had unlawfully allocated €2.6 million to 13 projects intended to combat antisemitism.
The projects were neither correctly chosen nor professionally vetted, the court concluded, and some were ineligible for funding altogether. The report, published yesterday, declared the funding procedure “clearly illegal” and “arbitrary”. An analysis conducted by Tagesspiegel at the beginning of March already showed that she had no intention of adhering to state budget regulations, revealing that she had written “we can disregard it” in a private chat.
On Tuesday, just days before her resignation, Wedl-Wilson had dismissed her State Secretary, Oliver Friederici (CDU), who was responsible for the allocation of antisemitism funding. Friederici was also said to have warned against the unlawful allocation of funds and named higher-ranking officials as the responsible parties prior to his dismissal. The Greens and the Left Party called this a diversion tactic, accusing Wedl-Wilson of looking for a scapegoat for her wrongdoings.
In a statement following her resignation, the Senator for Culture claimed she was stepping down “to prevent harm to the fight against antisemitism”, adding that ensuring the visibility of Jewish culture was both a political obligation and a “deeply personal mission” for her.
Berlin Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) accepted her request, but added that his government will not relent in their fight against antisemitism. It’s worth noting that the CDU is responsible for pushing a lot of the antisemitism projects Wedl-Wilson approved; specifically, Christian Goiny, a member of parliament from the CDU, who reportedly pressed Wedl-Wilson via WhatsApp on multiple occasions for the allocation of funds to Jewish projects – which she ultimately approved.
As the situation concerned multiple CDU members and Wegner knew about it for months, many view the chairman himself as responsible for it. This may well influence his party’s popularity in the local election coming up in September.
