Sönke Rix (49, SPD) will become the new president of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. This was announced this week. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (55, CSU) wanted to officially announce the appointment.
▶︎ Rix was a member of the left wing of the SPD and served for 20 years Bundestag. There he distinguished himself through his fight against AfD politicians, whom he often insulted as “Nazis”. Rix was also restless Friedrich Merz (70, CDU), whom he accused in September 2023 of fomenting “racist hatred” and moving further “to the right”. Sönke Rix has a political side and should still lead an important federal political education center. That’s what he wanted SPDThe Union granted the request.
This decision was not in keeping with the spirit of its inventor: The Federal headquarters founded in 1952 to counter communist propaganda infiltrating the Federal Republic of Germany.
▶︎ Its mission is to provide balanced information. Political controversies must be depicted. All citizens should benefit, especially schools.
This neutrality was abolished by the last President Thomas Krüger (66, SPD), who turned the federal headquarters “into an identity political body in an indiscriminate struggle against the far right,” as historian Peter Hoeres of the University of Würzburg explains.
Federal centers must return to providing information, not indoctrination. The opposite would happen: Rix would continue Krüger’s work. In East Germany there was a “main ideologue” who ruled what was right and what was wrong. That’s what the federal center should not do. If yes, you should close it.
