By Filipp Piatov and Carl-Victor Wachs
Again excitement about Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (67, Greens)!
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) has existed since 1957, and numerous museums and cultural institutions are bundled under its roof. Now Roth wants to give the foundation a new name!
The reason given by the Minister of State for Culture: The current name does not “express the cosmopolitan nature of the cultural assets”. Roth: “What do Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys have to do with Prussia?”. Rather, an “attractive, future-oriented name” is necessary, according to the Minister of State to the “Spiegel”.
Claudia Roth also complained: The name excludes a large part of Germany. “Prussia is an important legacy, but not our only one. This one-sided prioritization is wrong, Germany is much more,” says Roth.
BUT: There is no suggestion for a new name yet.
The SPK was founded after the dissolution of the Prussian state in order “to preserve its collections as part of the German heritage,” according to the foundation’s website. “The foundation carries the cultural heritage entrusted to it in its name.”
Historians appalled by Roth’s plans
Historian Hubertus Knabe (63) is appalled by Roth’s plan. “The Greens’ lack of history is frightening. After the Bismarck room in the Foreign Office, they are now apparently also putting Prussia on the index,” Knabe told BILD. “Next might be Martin Luther and Charlottenburg Palace. No country in the world treats its historical heritage like this.”
CDU MP Andreas Mattfeldt (53) sees Roth’s initiative as a next “step by the Greens to get rid of our cultural and national heritage”.
Rather, Mattfeldt, who is a managing partner of the Royal Prussian Beer Manufactury together with the head of the House of Hohenzollern, Georg Friedrich Prince of Prussia, demands: “Ms. It is “all too easy to see through that the name discussion she is now having is only intended to distract from the real massive problems of the foundation and that real restructuring does not have to be tackled in this way”.
Criticism also comes from the former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse (79, SPD). According to “Spiegel”, he sees the renaming plans as an “attempt to free oneself from historical burdens”, a “new German special path”. His accusation: The Greens would “purge history with moral fury”.