OB Reker blocks new appointments in Cologne
Die the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, stands in the way of the early termination of the vacancy in the management of the city’s Nazi Documentation Center, which was desired by a majority in the council. Werner Jung, who has been relocated to the EL-DE House since 1986, the preferred Gestapo headquarters, which is a memorial, museum and research facility at the same time, and who was made director in 2002, retired on November 1, 2021. There was no tender for the successor because Stefan Charles, who has been in charge of the cultural department since October 1, 2021, is to develop a new concept for the history museum landscape in Cologne.
On April 5, the council’s culture committee gave the administration the order, against the votes of the CDU, to initiate the new appointment procedure immediately and to “inform the committee and the public transparently about all further steps in the appointment procedure”. The mayor has now informed the committee that she cannot close such an assignment because of her responsibility for personnel matters.
In her message to the committee, the mayor quotes from the main statute of the city of Cologne, which, according to the North Rhine-Westphalian municipal code, only grants the main committee, but not the specialist committees, a right to co-restrictions in personnel matters and this right in the interpretation of the administration on decisions, ” which change and justify the basic relationship under civil service law or the employment relationship of an employee in a management function with the municipality”. The mayor deduces from this that she does not have to add herself to the committee’s vote. “The decision-making authority to advertise a vacancy rests with the mayor, unless it is a deputy.”
Requirements profile and overall concept
As Charles had presented to the committee on April 5, the advertisement should only be published when “the requirement profile of the position of the applicants’ qualifications has been defined”. The connection between this profile and the overall concept currently being worked on is confirmed. Under the name “Historic Center”, the administration will link, among other things, the city museum, which had to be moved out of the armory in Minoritenstraße, and the Jewish Museum MiQua, which is currently under construction, by the Rhineland Regional Council in the interest of tourist clarity.
Henriette Reker was elected Mayor of Cologne in 2015 and re-elected in 2020. The independent lawyer is supported by a “council alliance” made up of the Greens, the CDU and the small pan-European party Volt. In the culture committee, the Greens broke away from the Reker coalition in order to help the motion submitted by the SPD, FDP and Left Party to a majority. In the justification for the application, it was pointed out that delaying the replacement could be misunderstood as a political signal. “Even in view of the current discussion about racism and discrimination, the city’s procedure must be protested in the strongest possible terms.”
For Lorenz Deutsch, the cultural policy spokesman for the FDP, “the question arises as to whether the political dimension of this process was recognized and why it is so important for the administration not to take over this occupation for the time being”. Deutsch told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that the independence of the institution, nicknamed NS-Dok, reflects the importance of the Nazi era for German historical awareness. “The NS-Dok has an absolutely special position. It must not be one chapter among many.” Deutsch calls the “classification of the NS-Doc as one among other historical museums” “more than irritating”.
Selection without a selection committee
There are good reasons among Cologne’s specialist historians and those involved in history and politics for the culture committee not only wanting to put out an immediate call for entries, but also want the interested public to be comprehensively informed about the further steps of the procedure. The director’s position has only been advertised twice; it is about securing a considerable institutional continuity. Contemporary witnesses remember that the previous two calls for proposals were not known in the scene of historical and museum experts, and the city had never called on the expertise of specialists in the selection interviews with applicants, i.e. it had not appointed a commission, as was the case with the Search for a theater director is common, but let the personnel department do it.
In a written statement on the situation created by the mayor’s intervention, which is available to the FAZ, Jörg Frank, the former long-time leader of the Greens parliamentary group in the city council, states that the “danger of losing the independence” of the NS Documentation Center “has by no means been averted”. may be. “An advertisement can change the focus significantly and thus discourage you from applying in a professionally competent and suitable manner. Last but not least, the range of competent applications WILL also be restricted if a job advertisement is not made accessible to the professional world via trade journals and platforms, or only to an insufficient extent.”
After all, the constitution of the culture committee inspired by a petition by the sponsoring association of the EL-DE house with the vacancy at Appellhofplatz led to the administration promising a date for the advertisement. It should take place in the 22nd calendar week, i.e. between May 30th and June 3rd.