Ten percent may not seem like that much, especially to those of us coming from countries that allocate way less funding for the culture scene. But the budget cuts announced recently by the Berlin Senate mean around €130 million less for Berlin’s culture sector in 2025 alone, which is quite a big chunk of change from a sector whose state financial support accounts for just 2.1% of the overall city budget.
Berlin’s annual budget has grown since the pandemic years to nearly €40 billion, a figure that the city’s population and tax base can’t sustain. The CDU-SPD coalition has promised to reduce the overall budget by more than €3 billion in the coming years, and it seems like there’s almost nothing that’s not on the chopping block – around €660 million from the transportation budget, and another €370 from education as well as cuts to science, healthcare, digitisation, justice, sports, and the list goes on. So why go after the city’s lifeblood?
When the new budgeting goes through, the biggest loser will be Berlin itself.
The impending cuts will affect all state-owned or state-funded cultural institutions in Berlin, including operas, concert halls like the renowned Philharmonie and dance institutions, plus the Freie Szene, children’s and youth theatre, orchestras, music schools, museums and the visual arts with their exhibition venues and studios – the famous club scene and the diverse cultural education programmes will suffer as well. The cuts will have an existential impact on the structures of institutions; the planned renovation of the Komische Oper, for example, is set to lose €10 million originally made available for the project, and artists’ work spaces will see €12 million less funding. You can’t help but wonder: how many jobs will be lost? How many opportunities missed? How many dreams shattered?
Since the announcement of the coalition’s plans in October, a steady resistance has sprung up from the city’s soon-to-be-affected venues and organisations. Protests and actions are being organised across town under the collective hashtag #BerlinistKultur, to draw attention to those who will be losing big due to the austerity measures. Interrupted theatre performances, red-and-white banners on cultural buildings and empty library shelves were presented to the public as imagery that highlighted the intensity of the forthcoming effects.
The Deutsches Theater, the Volksbühne, the Berliner Ensemble, the Schaubühne, the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (ZLB) the Deutsches Technikmuseum and the Berlin Club Commission, among others, are all participating in the actions. On a centralised day of action on October 16, Culture Minister Joe Chialo declared that “Berlin must save money – but culture is the pulse of our city, and not only a legacy of the past, but also a promise for the future”.
Since then, the actions and petitions only gained momentum. On November 13, thousands of people gathered by Brandenburg Gate to show their solidarity and urge the government to find other ways to save money. A broad alliance of Berlin’s cultural workers, institutions and groups also organised a quickly-sold-out concert on November 19 to send a clear message against the impending cutbacks. The evening, entitled ‘Berlin ist Kultur – Das Konzert’ and held at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, brought together a variety of Berlin’s culture on one stage.
“We don’t want to stand by and watch in silence as the city loses the rich culture that makes it worth living in. Us cultural workers want to defend Berlin’s cultural diversity with a joint evening of solidarity – with the most diverse programme possible and contributions from all genres and arts, with music and dance, scenes and readings,” the #BerlinIstKultur alliance stated in their press release prior about the event.
This much is clear: when the new budgeting goes through, the biggest loser will be Berlin itself. Most creatives relocate to this city specifically because of its cultural scene, which is part of why this is such a multilingual city. The clubs, the theatres, the residency programmes, the museums, the countless opportunities to hone and showcase talent – these sorts of things are what the city we know today was built on and what made it an attractive place to be. Making such significant cuts to culture trims away what makes living here enjoyable, and leaves Berlin at risk of losing its status as a cultural haven.
After all, Berlin really is culture. If dancefloors will go dark, if theatres and concert venues can only put on established shows and are unable to provide a platform for experimental pieces and new talents to surface, if libraries won’t have the means to renew their supply for the curious minds to grow, if children cannot have the early education into arts and music, if the scene’s freelance culture workers will be without work – if they take all that away, where do we go from here?
