As expected, the proposal by Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth to give the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) a new name evoked a loud and varied response.

Roth had told the "Spiegel" that the name was no longer up to date, not cool;

he does not fit: "Prussia is an important legacy, but not our only one, this one-sided prioritization is wrong, Germany is much more," she said.

And that Bavaria or Hesse can hardly identify with the term Prussian cultural heritage. 

Claudius Seidl

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK, supports them insofar as he, too, finds the name difficult and difficult to convey abroad: "When you translate Prussian cultural heritage into French, English or Spanish in international bodies, you always have to explain what it is about is and why one of the world's largest German cultural institutions bears this name," said Parzinger of the German Press Agency.

There has long been global competition between the major cultural institutions, so the reference to Prussia is more of a burden: "That's why a name would be good that not only emphasizes our undoubtedly important roots, but also opens up perspectives for the future."

In addition to the former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse, more conservative journalists, politicians and historians from the CDU and FDP raised objections.

Thierse calls it “history purification”;

others see it as the next outgrowth of identity politics.

“Are you not allowed to say Prussia anymore?” asks the “Berliner Kurier” with extreme concern.

Prussia's bankrupt estate

The name is anything but a homage to Prussia, but the logical result of Prussia's end.

On February 25, 1947, the Allied Control Council decreed that "the State of Prussia, its central government and all subordinate authorities are hereby dissolved".

However, since the state had enormous art treasures at its disposal, an institution was needed to take them over.

And since the state of Prussia encompassed most of northern Germany, states such as North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony were also among the sponsors of the foundation, which took on this task.

The name thus referred to the cultural bankruptcy estate of a vanished state.

Claudia Roth asked what Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys “have to do with Prussia”;

the defenders of Prussia also interpreted this statement as ignorance.

But she is not wrong: museums and exhibition halls such as the New National Gallery or the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin no longer refer to Prussia's heritage, but are the arena of contemporary art that owes little to Prussia.

And that, the large number of museums, exhibition venues, libraries and other cultural institutions, was also the reason why a commission of experts recently recommended the dissolution of the foundation and the release of the large institutions into independence.

What would have remained of the name of the foundation if the SPK had been destined for the fate of the state it inherited, if the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation had been dissolved, exactly 75 years after the state of Prussia, is one question .

The other arises from the fact that the foundation is not to be dissolved after all, but is to be fundamentally reformed: is the name change really the most urgent reform?