Germany’s federal research and education ministry has dismissed as “speculation and false information” claims it sought to sanction academics who backed pro-Palestinian protests at a Berlin university.
Federal research minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger appeared a second time this week before the Bundestag’s education and research committee to explain her ministry’s response to a police shutdown of a pro-Palestinian camp at Berlin’s Free University last May, arising from which 79 people were detained and charged.
In response, 130 mostly Germany-based academics signed a letter supporting the students’ “right to peaceful protest, which also includes the occupation of university grounds”.
“The constitutionally protected right to assemble peacefully applies, regardless of the opinion expressed,” said the letter, which now has 1,073 signatories.
Ms Stark-Watzinger told the Bild tabloid she was left “speechless” by a letter she found one-sided for not mentioning Hamas violence against Israel.
Events stepped up a gear when leaked communications suggested ministry officials wondered aloud if any signatories to the letter could have their public funding cut.
In one message, a state secretary reportedly requested her staff examine the letter for language of “possible criminal relevance” or whether “consequences under funding law (revocation of funding, etc.) [is] possible” for signatories.
The leaked messages caused uproar, and were viewed in academic circles as attempts to curtail freedom of speech and independent research.
In an effort to calm the waters, the minister had her state secretary dismissed, claiming she had known nothing about the official’s “unclearly phrased request”.
Once again, however, leaks appear to contradict the minister’s version of events. Der Spiegel magazine published a leaked group chat from May 9th in which the minister and her inner circle appear to discuss criticisms on the social media platform X that her Bild interview was an attempt to intimidate academics by threatening their funding.
[ Foreign Affairs HQ in Dublin is daubed with Gaza protest graffitiOpens in new window ]
While the minister reportedly told her staff this was “nonsense”, given she doesn’t make funding decisions, another adviser appeared to suggest that the impression created by the interview could be helpful.
“I’d have nothing against it, if it creates a kind of informal, ‘voluntary’ and self-imposed anti-Semitism clause among some bewildered figures,” wrote the official, according to Der Spiegel.
The ministry has declined to comment on the leaked messages, while Ms Stark-Watzinger insists that “research freedom is important” to her.
At the same time, she has flagged complaints by Jewish students that campus anti-Semitism has left them feeling unsafe at German universities.
After a tense second hearing, Bundestag education and research committee head Kai Gehring insisted Germany benefited greatly from research freedom and autonomous third-level institutions. The ministry’s attempted intervention was, he told The Irish Times, “clearly worthy of criticism… and must not be repeated”.
Mr Gehring, a Green MP, said that “from this critical discussion comes a chance to strengthen still further the meaning of scientific research freedom”.
[ Pro-Palestine protest in Dublin criticises US support of IsraelOpens in new window ]
The German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV), which has 33,500 members, has warned the minister that full disclosure is the only way she can win back trust.
“How can Germany stand up for scientific freedom worldwide,” asked Prof Lambert Koch, DHV president, “if the accusations – that the ministry considered cancelling funding for critical researchers, at least briefly – are not completely dispelled?”
Since the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel, artists and scientists in Germany who have spoken out against Israel’s response in Gaza have reported cancelled projects and public funding.
The Bundestag is preparing a non-binding resolution suggesting arts and science funding applicants are required to explicitly reject anti-Semitism and recognise Israel’s right to exist.
In May, Germany’s federal arts minister published a legal report saying such conditions, though legally possible, were neither practicable nor advisable as they would require “a supervisory structure that… is susceptible to abuse”.
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