Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair was interrupted several times by demonstrators on Wednesday evening. During the speech, several activists scattered around the Gewandhaus shouted loudly but largely incomprehensibly into the SPD politician’s speech. According to several witnesses, the shouters accused the Israeli government of genocide in the Gaza Strip. However, large parts of the protest were drowned out by sustained applause from the audience. “Here in Leipzig, we are all brought together by the power of words – not shouting,” said Scholz, accompanied by applause. After a few minutes he was able to continue his opening speech.
Scholz came out as a bookworm. “All of us – and I include myself here – are united by a love of reading,” he said. “Whether as a child in the evening before going to sleep, as a young politician on the train between Hamburg and Bonn, or now, whenever time allows – books have accompanied me through my life for as long as I can remember.”
Scholz said that he is no more tied to a specific genre than the fair: science or society, adventure or crime, non-fiction or novel. “If you allow it, then behind the cover of the book there will be a surprise that we often miss on the Internet because algorithms there show us primarily what we think is good anyway, or should like.”
If you allow it, you will find something interesting, exciting or touching everywhere. Anyone who reads allows perspectives other than their own and takes a personal interest in developments, says Scholz. With every chapter, with every new page, contradictions that seemed unbridgeable in everyday life could be overcome. “Reading is therefore daily proof that we can understand each other despite our differences, that our societies, in Germany and in Europe, are by no means doomed to drift apart.”
Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm receives prize
The Leipzig Book Fair opens to visitors this Thursday at ten o’clock – Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will also be there on the first day of the fair. Around 100 events are planned until Sunday. One of the highlights is the awarding of the Leipzig Book Fair prize.
At the opening, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2024 was awarded to the Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm for his book “Radical Universalism”. In his acceptance speech, in the name of German-Israeli friendship, he also called for harsh criticism from Germany about the Middle East conflict. “The truth does not have to be sacrificed because of friendship, quite the opposite. Hard truths must be spoken openly,” said Boehm.