Correction to the answer: Schanzenbuchstore rehabilitated

The Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) has lifted a block on federal funds, as a result of which the Hamburg “Bookstore in the Schanzenviertel” should no longer receive any further funds.

This was preceded by a parliamentary question from the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, in which they wanted to know whether the federal government was aware of the collective's connections to the left-wing extremist scene. Citing findings from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the ministry responded that the bookstore would no longer receive federal funding.

The correction is “a nice success,” says a member of the taz operator collective. However, the collective has not received any official communication from the ministry. Only an application under the Freedom of Information Act (IFG) brought the change to light.

However, it is not possible to determine exactly from the internal documents “who wrote which wording and when,” says the member of the collective who submitted the application together with the lawyer Carsten Gericke. In the almost ten centimeter thick file, which the taz was able to view, four pages were completely blacked out, as were individual passages. The operator collective now wants to find out “who is responsible for the first answer,” says lawyer Gericke to the taz.

References to informants and sensitive source material

The documents show that the BMI asked various authorities not only about the bookstore's material support, but also about its political contacts. The list of ministries to which the BMI had addressed “requests” fills two pages of the file.

Next to the references to the authorities there is always the note: "Partial edition. Redaction in accordance with Section 3 No. 2 IFG". Sharing this information is not permitted because it could “endanger public safety.”

The Schanzenbuchhandlung found out in April through a Bundestag printed matter that it would no longer receive any money from the federal government. As the taz first reported, AfD MP Martin Hess wanted to know what funding the bookstore had received and whether the federal government was aware that the collective “most likely has close connections to the left-wing extremist scene.”

In his answer, Parliamentary State Secretary Christoph de Vries (CDU) listed state prize money and Corona aid and assured in the last paragraph that “no further federal funds” would flow due to “existing findings” from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

This sentence has now been corrected, as it became clear during the inspection of the files: The new version simply states that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is “aware of the references in question to the left-wing extremist scene”. However, the old version is still available in the Bundestag's parliamentary database.

In March it became known that Minister of State for Culture and Media Wolfram Weimer had three bookstores awarded by the independent jury removed from the list for the German Bookstore Prize, citing “findings relevant to the protection of the constitution,” the contents of which he was not aware of: the bookstores “Zur swaying Weltkugel” in Berlin, “Rote Straße” in Göttingen and “Golden Shop” in Bremen. The bookstores are suing against the exclusion from the bookstore price.

At the end of April, the Berlin administrative court had already prohibited Weimer from describing the operators of the Berlin bookstore “Zur swaying globe” as “political extremists”. The subject was a corresponding statement from the Minister of State for Culture in Die Zeit.

It is still questionable why Weimer interfered in the awarding of the bookstore prize at all. In the bookstore in the Schanzenviertel, people suspect that it was the AfD request that might have given him the idea.

When asked by the taz, Weimer's press officer did not respond to the collective's speculation. However, he writes that the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media “did not address any queries about the ‘bookstore in the Schanzenviertel’” to the Federal Ministry of the Interior or the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “No decision has been made about the allocation of any future funding or prize money to this bookstore,” he confirms once again the current status, as documented in the files.

The Schanzenbuchhandlung had received the prize, worth 7,000 euros, three times in previous years. At the beginning of September she was awarded the Hamburg Bookstore Prize by the Hamburg Cultural Authority as part of the Long Night of Literature and received prize money of 5,000 euros.

The award ceremony seems like a replica of Weimer's intervention. The authority's justification states: "A bookstore with attitude and a decided opinion. In a district that is changing rapidly, the bookstore asserts itself with its selected and committed range." Previously, Senator for Culture Carsten Brosda (SPD) had demonstratively bought a book in Schanzenbuchlanden: “With you, I would like to drink coffee in heaven” by Sarah Lorenz.