Only a few days ago the Berliner had Daily mirror the right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic remarks by Ehrhardt Bödecker, a major donor to the Humboldt Forum, are documented and his honor is criticized with a medal in a portal of the castle. On Wednesday evening, his son and daughter-in-law admitted the accuracy of the allegations. In their press release they write that Bödecker, who died in 2016, was known as a “controversial conservative and Prussian enthusiast”. But the previously unknown texts that he wrote in the last 15 years of his life contained “theses and formulations” that are “wrong and in some cases even right-wing extremists”. They also confirm that their father and father-in-law put forward these “unacceptable” theses in “right-wing extremist circles”. You therefore ask those responsible to remove the medal showing the portraits of Bödecker and his wife Anneliese.
Bödecker was originally a judge and lawyer. In 1966 he took over Weberbank, a Berlin private bank, from his father-in-law. After he retired in 1995, he set up the private Brandenburg-Prussia Museum in Wustrau, Brandenburg.
Mild forms of Prussian nostalgia are likely to be widespread among the 40,000 private donors of the Humboldt Forum. At Bödecker, however, it was part of an anti-democratic, revanchist and racist worldview. However, in the Humboldt Forum, as in Bödecker’s family, it was apparently only through the newspaper article by the Kassel architecture professor and former head of the Dessau Bauhaus Foundation, Philipp Oswalt, that they became aware of this.
Bödecker also spoke at the Institute for State Policy, which the constitution protection classifies as right-wing extremist
Most of Bödecker’s essays and essays also revolve around the subject of Prussia. In it he defends Prussia against the accusation of militarism, portrays the empire as “the most successful state in German history” and laments the decline of Germany, which in his eyes began with the end of Prussia. Bödecker found the echo space for his texts in the neo-right milieu. His book “Prussia and the roots of success”, for example, was published posthumously by Kopp-Verlag, which has a number of right-wing titles in its program. He is said to have given lectures at the institute for state policy classified as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Saxony-Anhalt. He also wrote several times in the Boys freedom.
In the end, Bödecker no longer limited himself to the Prussian celebration, but allowed his anti-Semitism to resonate more and more openly. He lamented the “Talmudic ‘never forget'” that Germany had suffered from since 1918. He denounced the “self-deification of the victors” after the Second World War and the “brainwashing” to which they had subjected the Germans. The Jewish sociologists at the Frankfurt School were to blame for this. He even raved about the “now scientifically proven incorrectness of the alleged number of six million victims” of the Holocaust.
The Humboldt Forum is now doubly embarrassed by this surprising turn. At first they had apparently dispensed with an examination of Bödecker’s journalistic output. Then on Tuesday they waved off the promise to have their statements checked by a “renowned contemporary history institute”, although they leave little room for interpretation. After all, the Humboldt Forum distanced itself from Bödecker’s attitude. They “in no way” share Bödecker’s views and speak out “clearly against any form of the minimization of violence, discrimination, marginalization and racism”.
The influence of the donors on the design of the palace was repeatedly criticized
It is different with the Berlin Palace Association, which is responsible for donating the castle, of the former tractor manufacturer Wilhelm von Boddien. “We paid attention to civil reputation, not political attitudes,” he told the Berlin newspaper. He was not prepared to comment on the SZ. The bad thing is, the architecture critic Oswalt told the SZ, that for many Bödecker’s worldview is quite compatible with “bourgeois reputation”. But Boddien’s reluctance is also due to the fact that he and Bödecker sometimes associated with similar circles and published in the same books, even if Boddien never expressed himself in the same way as Bödecker.
The influence that millionaires had on the design of the new palace building was repeatedly criticized, especially in connection with the donation made by the mail-order heiress Maren Otto for the cross on the dome. It goes back to the arrangement that the Bundestag agreed on in 2002. After that, the state bears the costs of the reconstruction, but the reconstruction of the historical facade is financed through private donations. 105 million euros have been collected for this.
Together with his wife Anneliese, Bödecker donated 500,000 euros for the reconstruction of the “northern cartouche” to the left of the Eosander portal of the rebuilt castle. In addition, the two gave at least another 500,000 euros. The award with a relief medallion was only available for donations of one million euros or more. How much the Bödeckers donated in total and for what purpose remains the foundation’s secret.