During the controversy over the German Bookseller Prize, independent state minister for culture Wolfram Weimer defended the exclusion of three bookstores from the list of laureates by citing the so‑called “Haber procedure”. New questions are now emerging.
When the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) was asked, the BKM received information that there are “constitutional‑protection‑relevant findings” concerning the bookstores in Berlin, Bremen and Göttingen. The FAZ, however, reports in its Saturday edition that the content of those findings has not been disclosed to the state minister. According to a BKM spokesperson, the agency never exercised the option in the Haber procedure that allows a clarification request to the BfV.
In a cultural‑affairs committee hearing, Weimer compared the case to a hypothetical “Nazi bookseller in Erfurt” apparently unaware of why the BfV links the three left‑wing shops with anti‑constitutional aims, according to the FAZ.
The excluded bookstores now intend to sue for the award money. A lawyer told the FAZ that, lacking factual grounds, Weimer had no discretion to change the jury’s decision.