German Publishing Prize: The jury explains: “The Haber process is incompatible with our work”

This initially refers to a “clarification” that the jury obtained from Weimer and his authority to the effect that their decision-making would not be tampered with and that the subsequent task of the BKM would be “limited to the formal confirmation of the decision and the payment of the prize money”. Weimer confirmed this in a letter dated July 16th after there was confusion in his press release about the change in the selection process.

“The selection of the publishers to be honored is made by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM) on the basis of the jury’s recommendations,” it said, somewhat misleadingly (although that has always been the case), and that he could veto it in exceptional cases, for example if there was information about nominees that was relevant to the protection of the constitution.

“We understand this assurance as a binding basis for further jury work,” the jury wrote in the statement, before going into detail about the Haber proceedings and the advisory committee newly founded by the Börsenverein, Weimer and the Kurt Wolff Foundation, the latter a real innovation.

Trust looks different

“It is not compatible with our understanding of an independent and professionally responsible selection process,” explains the jury with regard to the Haber procedure, which was used for the bookstore prize and calls on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to identify any enemies of the constitution among bookstores or publishers. Afterwards, three bookstores from Bremen, Göttingen and Berlin did not receive any prizes for the bookstore prize, even though the jury had chosen them for the award.

The jury does not necessarily welcome the fact that in cases of doubt an advisory committee is now intervened so that the Haber procedure does not have to be used in the first place. She points out that “the establishment of the advisory group was agreed without the participation of the jury” and calls for that “the committee acts exclusively in an advisory capacity and affects neither the independence of the jury nor the binding nature of its vote”. And: “As soon as the BKM no longer has the option of using the Haber procedure, such a committee should also become obsolete.”

Now, despite the bookstore awards scandal in the spring and Weimer’s elimination of three bookstores that were honored by the jury, it is somewhat surprising that the jury feels compelled to make such a statement – trust in the BKM and its house looks different.

Above all, it is astonishing that not all jury members signed, but only five of them, Alexander Cammann, Isabele Cole, Ines Dettmann, Katharina Holzmann and Deniz Utlu. Missing are literary scholar Friedhelm Marx and, of all people, chairman Jörg Thadeusz, who, when he took office on the jury, spoke of “mystery bookstores,” which Weimer did not take into account for the bookstore prize. And who, unlike many juries, was not chosen as chairman by the jury, but by Wolfram Weimer himself.

Thadeusz and Marx do not seem to be quite so happy with the explanation and do not want to prevent political influence by all means, even if it is only in the form of such announcements. They don’t want to say anything “about this matter”, as Thadeusz wrote to the Tagesspiegel in an email upon request, just like the jurors who initiated the statement. It is therefore possible that not everything will be well with the German Publishing Prize and that there will still be a lot of friction. The prize will be awarded for the eighth time on October 9th at the Frankfurt Book Fair and is worth a total of two million euros for independent publishers.