CDU on culture and media

The CDU wants to secure funding for palaces, heritage buildings, museums, theaters and music schools in Thuringia, in some cases increasing it. Cultural funding is to become more flexible and more performance-based. Customs, dialects and local heritage work are also to keep receiving support.

Thuringia has many palaces, theaters and museums. The CDU wants to keep them and give more money. People who restore an old protected building should get help. Music schools should be able to keep working safely. Dialects and customs should also be cared for.

The federal special investment program for historic monuments is to continue beyond 2028, with the state securing its share; the Stiftung Thüringer Schlösser und Gärten (palaces and gardens foundation) is to be expanded and opened to further heritage sites. The Kulturlastenausgleich (cultural burden-sharing scheme) is to become more transparent, more performance-based, open to new applicants and better funded. A heritage renovation bonus is to support private restoration through an expanded funding guideline and more money. Small and mid-sized museums get their own program, public music and youth art schools are secured, and independent music schools supported. Theaters and orchestras are to be made crisis-proof through more cooperation and a transformation process paid for by the state. The CDU stands by the UNESCO bid for Thuringia's residence culture and wants to raise the profile of October 25 as Constitution Day.

The CDU wants to continue confronting both the Nazi dictatorship and the SED dictatorship and to keep funding memorial sites. It plans a central memorial in Thuringia for victims of the East German regime and wants better compensation at the federal level. Research on East German history is to receive more money.

The CDU wants to remember two dictatorships: the Nazi era and East Germany. Memorial sites should keep getting money. There should be a memorial for the victims of East Germany. The victims should get more help. Researchers should find out more about East Germany.

The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora memorials, the Andreasstraße memorial, the border museums and the German War Graves Commission are to keep receiving support. At the federal level, the CDU wants improvements to the pension for SED victims, compensation for people persecuted in their careers, and recognition of health damage caused by persecution. State budget funds for research on SED injustice are to rise, also to examine the effects of the upheavals of the 1990s. The life achievements of East Germans are to be given more recognition, and people with interrupted work histories better support.

The CDU wants to introduce a remembrance day in Thuringia for the victims of flight, expulsion and forced resettlement. The state government is to have a high-level contact person for German expellees and Spätaussiedler (ethnic German resettlers). Their cultural heritage and associations are to keep receiving funding.

Many Germans had to leave their homes after the war. The CDU wants a remembrance day for them. The government should have a fixed contact person. The expellee groups should keep getting money. Degrees of ethnic German resettlers should be recognized faster.

The remembrance day is meant to keep memory alive, call for reconciliation and contribute to understanding between peoples. The CDU wants to meet the cultural funding duties under the Federal Expellees Act and fund the communities adequately. The platform sees expellees, resettlers and German minorities abroad as a bridge between nations, and cross-border reconciliation work is to be supported. Vocational and educational qualifications that resettlers earned abroad are to be recognized through swift procedures.

The CDU calls for a reform treaty among the states that redefines the remit and offerings of the public broadcasters. It rejects an increase in the broadcasting fee and relies on savings instead. Oversight of the broadcasters is to be strengthened.

The CDU wants to reform the public broadcasters. The broadcasting fee should not go up. The broadcasters should save money. They should also be checked more strictly.

In the CDU's view, the broadcasters' mission of neutral and objective reporting should be fulfilled effectively and economically; the platform points to the RBB scandal. Savings are to come from cooperation and an adjusted programming remit. Small and medium-sized businesses should no longer have to pay the fee multiple times. Supervisory bodies are to become more professional and get more powers of control, and the courts of audit are to review the broadcasters' budgets and financial management.

The CDU wants to liberalize and simplify Thuringia's state media law to give media companies more room to operate. At the same time, young media firms, community and local media, digital radio and rural movie theaters are to receive support.

The CDU wants to loosen the media law in Thuringia. Media companies should get more freedom. Small and local broadcasters should get help. Movie theaters in rural areas should stay.

The state media law is to be adapted to the changed media market and the interstate media treaty and stripped of red tape. Young, innovative media companies are to get targeted support. Production contracts from MDR and KiKA are to go to Thuringian companies in proportion to fee revenue. Private radio stations are to get help expanding DAB+, and private local TV stations are to get funding for equipment. Community media are to be prepared for the digital media world, and a high-quality film offering is to remain available in rural regions.