Wolfram Weimer avoids the debate

After the debate about the bookstore prize after the BKM excluded three bookstores because of “constitutionally relevant information,” Wolfram Weimer canceled the award ceremony on March 19th at the Leipzig Book Fair.

The reason given by the BKM press office was precisely this debate, which threatened to “increasingly overshadow the actual meaning of the event – ​​namely the award and honor of independent bookstores”. “An appropriate recognition of the award winners hardly seems possible in such a context,” it said.

A debate as a reason for rejection? One can be surprised at this, especially when it comes from someone who took office with the intention of “widening the corridors of what can be said, explored and represented (…) instead of narrowing them”.

Great outrage over the exclusion of bookstores

It is obvious that Weimer does not want to expose himself to the debate that will inevitably continue at the Leipzig Book Fair. The outrage over the exclusion of bookstores from Berlin, Göttingen and Bremen was not only great in the book and cultural sectors; lawyers also publicly questioned Weimer’s actions.

The bookstore prize was launched in 2015 by the then Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, to support independent, owner-managed bookstores in particular. The award ceremony was to take place for the first time this year at the Leipzig Book Fair – at a “concentrated, dignified ceremony”, as the BKM imagined. But now only indignity is the trump card.

Weimer has not only demonstrated a lack of trust in an entire industry that should actually be particularly important to him as Minister of State for Culture; he discredited the jury that classified the 118 bookstores as worthy of the prize and which was appointed by himself and completely new for the first time; and he is damaging a prize that was once established by his authority with the best of intentions. A minister could hardly be more clumsy.