In an evening session of the Bundestag on July 7, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group called for consequences from the anti-Semitism scandal at Documenta 15 in Kassel.

In her application, she advocated, among other things, the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to identify wrong decisions and personal responsibilities.

Stefan Trinks

Editor in the Feuilleton.

  • Follow I follow

In her speech, the CDU MP Gitta Connemann lamented the considerable damage to the reputation of the entire country, citing worldwide headlines such as "scandal", "eclat" and "mess" and described the anti-Semitic images as "Jew hatred in its purest form, namely around the world".

On the part of those responsible, however, there was no insight, “up to the mayors of Kassel”, whereby they not only criticized the current mayor Christian Geselle, but also included the former Hans Eichel, who had written in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that Germany with the condemnation of the BDS initiative by the Bundestag in 2019 in Europe "standing pretty much alone, worldwide anyway."

According to Connemann, it was a scandal that was announced after the Central Council of Jews and many press representatives had warned for months, but nobody in the federal government wanted to listen.

Minister of State for Culture Roth only based her trust in the Documenta management on public statements.

However, there should be “no discount” on anti-Semitism, which Connemann called a structural problem of Documenta 15, regardless of the ideological, religious or political orientation it came from.

She also quoted extensively the managing director of the Central Council of Jews, Daniel Botmann, who on Wednesday in the Bundestag's culture committee had accused the "Hijacking Memories" conference organized by the federally funded House of World Cultures in Berlin as putting it in perspective.

on the open stage,

Criticism of insufficient quality control

From the governing parties, MP Helge Lindh from the SPD said that no one in the country interested in culture seriously wanted to bury the Documenta, but that there were countless Jews killed by Germans in World War II in Ukraine, for example, who could never be buried by their relatives.

The limit of artistic freedom is the violation of human dignity, one of the most used words of the evening.

Since Ruangrupa propagates political art, the collective must also face a political assessment.

However, it is not about sensitivities, but about facts, facts and history that show that anti-Semitism kills, Lindh affirmed.

Erhard Grundl from the Greens also described anti-Semitism as an attack on human dignity that should never be tolerated.

Degrading Jews could never be based on artistic freedom.

But the Documenta problem is not a mushroom that grows overnight;

Rather, the federal government as the supervisory authority of the Kassel World Art Show had already withdrawn under Monika Grütters in 2018.

Anikó Merten (FDP) spoke of a "control disaster" that had led to the complete failure of review bodies or "external quality control" through the collective snowball system ("one collectivist knows someone who knows someone else").

According to Merten, the documenta “always needs a scandal”, but this time human dignity was “collectively trampled on” so that all of the participants would leave this documenta damaged.

However, the processing is already in full swing.

Like other members of the governing parties, Merten also referred to plans by Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth.

In a five-point plan, the Greens had called for changes to the structure of the documenta.

In essence, the federal government should have more influence on the Documenta via the two supervisory board mandates it is entitled to, but which have been dormant since 2018, otherwise there will be no more money from Berlin.

The motion of the CDU was rejected with the votes of the members of the governing coalition.