This seems entirely unremarkable to me:
Every year, the German Bookshop prize, awarded on behalf of the federal government’s commissioner for culture and the media, serves as a financial injection for more than 100 independent, owner-managed bookshops all over Germany. An independent jury selects the winners, based on criteria such as carefully curated literary selection and cultural events. Usually, the public doesn’t take much notice of the prize; its weight on the public purse is barely significant. But for small bookshops operating on narrow margins, the prize money of between €7,000 and €25,000 makes a tangible difference.
This year, for the first time, three bookshops disappeared from the jury’s list, according to an investigation by the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The ministry of culture deleted them, due to “information of relevance to the domestic intelligence agency”, it states. What kind of information? Nobody knows, not even Germany’s commissioner for culture himself, since the domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) is not allowed to divulge it. A quick look at the three bookshops is telling: they are antifascist, they are proud of it and they are institutions in their communities.
If politics feeds money into something then which something gets money fed into it will be determined by politics.
Shrug.
There never will be – cannot be – non-political spending of money by politics. Which means by taxes. So, you attach to the State Teat then the milk you gain will be determined by politics.
Shrug.
It’s one of the grand joys of free markets – no politics.
But if they were fascist bookshops, it would, no doubt, be appropriate for them to be removed from consideration.
If they were “anti fascist”, they were probably into the whole spectrum of ultra left identity politics too.
Or associated with the AfD.
It’s not beyond the power of these people to call things “fascist” and “anti-fascist” in the same sentence.
But I think the slur against AfD is “fascist”, so it’s unlikely.
It comes as a huge surprise that leftist bookshops rely on “prizes” (a.k.a. government subsidies or robbing Peter to pay Paul) instead of on customers
“Anti-fascist” is generally a polite way to say “extremist leftist”. It’s often the case that “political bookshops” hosting talks and meetings are the front for something else, not necessarily conducive to the public good. So it’s not a great surprise the BfV might flag something up to stop state money getting thrown at such causes.
An educated guess: there may have been more politicking being done in the jury when selecting these bookshops, careful to pick the “right sort” of winner when juicy funding is on offer, than there was in the BfV decision to put a stop to it. Particularly if you think about the kind of people who sit on arts and culture juries.
The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz collects data of all kinds as part of its mandate to monitor extremism. In practice, it functions largely as a black box. We simply don’t know what kind of information is gathered or why certain establishments were being monitored. Did these bookshops sell works by radical thinkers? Did informants merely identify them as meeting places for the leftwing scene? Or was having an “antifa” sticker on the wall enough to justify an investigation?
Antifa are a violent, anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-White organisation with global reach. They should not only be monitored, a civilised country would shut them down.
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-blackout-how-dangerous-are-leftwing-extremists/a-75400358
A miserable socialist slug laments:
Shortly after taking office last year, Weimer advocated a ban on gender-inclusive language in publicly funded institutions. He has also urged the German film industry, which traditionally has strong arthouse funding, to make more blockbusters or, as he put it, “audience desires, the market, on things that actually work”. With no party-political affiliation, Weimer avoids using words and phrases associated with the far right. But he understands very well that influence is most effective when it appears administrative. There is no need to ban books if you can redefine what counts as worthy of support and funding.
Reeee! Fascism!
Nobody buys my books. I’m being banned!!!!!
“There is no need to ban books if you can redefine what counts as worthy of support and funding.
The irony is that supporting art is precisely what fascists do. All that Triumph of the Will, Olympia etc.
Almost none of it is any good. Whether you want to judge art on the money it made or cultural influence, state-funded art has neither. All those plays and films about Thatcher, nuclear war or gays in the 1980s are forgotten. Name a great movie from the Soviet Union? Well, there’s Bondarchuk’s War and Peace, some of Tarkovsky’s films, and Come and See. 70 years and they produced fewer great movies than America did in WW2. About the only piece of good art from the Nazi era is Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.
I see two scenarios here:
“anti-fascist” has been a euphemism for terrorists, saboteurs and fifth columnists since its inception.
It’s time we reintroduced Trotskyites’ natural predator, the icepick.
Splitters !
That’ll be antifascist in the modern American sense of fascistic, I dare say.
Still, what business is it of the Gestapo? Shouldn’t they be expending their energy in censoring free speech and harassing honest citizens?