Lie in rejection email? Further dispute over bookstore prize

The three bookshops excluded from the German Bookstore Prize accuse Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer of having deceived them in a rejection email - his office rejects the accusations. The law firms of the bookshops concerned in Bremen, Göttingen and Berlin are accusing Weimer of having "untruthfully" justified the rejection in an email by stating that the independent jury had not selected the bookshops. In fact, according to Weimer himself, he had them removed from the prize list due to "findings relevant to the protection of the constitution".

"A lie like the one in the rejection email to the bookshops is cowardly," said Göttingen lawyer Sven Adam. They now want to examine a complaint to the Chancellery.

Standardized rejection "for reasons of secrecy"

A spokeswoman for Weimer, however, pointed out that a "standardized rejection" had been sent. "The email was sent to all bookshops that were not to receive the award," she told the German Press Agency. "For reasons of confidentiality, there was no other way of dealing with the three special cases in question. In this respect, we refer to the Federal Ministry of the Interior."

Weimer's decision to exclude three left-wing bookshops as award winners has been the subject of debate for days. Weimer (non-party) argued that the prize, which is financed with taxpayers' money, should not go to "enemies of the state", as he had said in the Bundestag's Culture Committee. Lawyers for the bookshops said they had filed a complaint with the administrative courts in Berlin and Cologne.

The German Bookshop Prize is awarded to more than 100 bookshops in Germany. At the beginning of the week, the independent jury distanced itself from the decision to exclude three bookshops. The subsequent decision was made by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and "was beyond our control", according to the statement.