The architect and architectural historian Philipp Oswalt, critic of the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace, together with other cultural scientists, is calling on those responsible for politics and, above all, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth to set up an independent commission to review the donation practices at the Humboldt Forum.
According to a press release, this commission should check whether the donors for the palace’s facade decoration include people “with right-wing radical, anti-democratic, historical revisionist, racist or anti-Semitic attitudes.” The palace with the Humboldt Forum is too important “as the most important architectural core of identity of the Berlin Republic” for “even the slightest doubt to remain as to the provenance of the funds.”
To check the anonymous donors, who are not known by name to the federal government and the Humboldt Forum Foundation, independent experts must also be commissioned to maintain confidentiality and prepare a report without naming the donors for the 25 anonymously donated million euros in funding to write.
The catalog of demands also states that all donations from incorrect sources should go to charitable anti-racist initiatives. Likewise, “the components financed in whole or in part by such donations” should be blacked out or otherwise identified. In addition, the Humboldt Forum Foundation should end its collaboration with the Berlin Castle Association, which had collected the donations for the facade decoration.
The critics, who include the historian and Africa expert Jürgen Zimmerer and the writer Max Czollek, are also in favor of “an artistic competition” with the aim of “breaking the Prussian-glorifying external appearance of the building”.
At the beginning of March, the sculptures of eight biblical prophets were installed on the dome balustrade. On this occasion, Oswalt named the former right-wing politician and Young Freedom author Vera Lengsfeld as the donor of the Daniel sculpture. He also repeated his accusation that the donations could have influenced the design of the facade.
Hartmut Dorgerloh, general director of the Humboldt Forum, rejected the allegations in March. In a statement, the foundation admitted that individual donations could come from a “problematic national-conservative and sometimes even anti-democratic environment.” At the same time, she emphasized that no donor could influence the architecture or the production of individual components. “Metaphorically speaking,” Vera Lengsfeld’s donation would not even have been enough to finance the “right little fingernail of the Prophet Daniel.”
The foundation also pointed out that after a change in guidelines since November 2022, accepting anonymous donations is excluded.
