What do the parties say on culture and media?

The AfD wants Germany's international broadcasters, the Goethe-Institut network and cultural projects to convey a positive image of Germany and promote its cultural heritage. One priority is to be support for German minorities abroad. In EU institutions, German is to be put on a truly equal footing with the working languages English and French.

The AfD wants to promote German culture abroad. German broadcasters and Goethe institutes should show a good picture of Germany. German minorities in other countries should get help. In the EU, German should matter as much as English and French.

The AfD sets a German Leitkultur (guiding culture) against the concept of multiculturalism. In its view, this guiding culture is the basis for social cohesion and a functioning state. Customs, dialects and historic townscapes are to be cultivated and preserved.

The AfD wants a German guiding culture. This means German culture should be the standard for everyone. The AfD says this holds society together. Customs and dialects should be kept alive. Old town centers should stay beautiful.

The AfD wants official remembrance culture to honor German history as a whole and not only its dark chapters. It rejects removing monuments, renaming streets and a "decolonization" of culture. For victims of communism it calls for a memorial and higher benefits.

The AfD wants to remember history in a different way. The state should also show the good times. Monuments should stay. Streets should keep their names. There should be a memorial for the victims of communism. The pension for victims of the East German regime should go up.

The AfD wants to write German into the constitution as the state and official language. Gender-inclusive language is to be banned in government offices and public institutions. The party justifies this with the importance of language for unity and with what it sees as ideology-free communication.

The AfD wants to write German into the Basic Law. The Basic Law is Germany's constitution. German should be named there as the language of the state. Public offices should no longer use gender-inclusive language. That is a way of writing that names all genders.

The AfD wants to remove political content requirements from public culture and film funding and to limit the federal government's cultural policy. Funded organizations are to commit to the free democratic basic order. Freelance artists, musicians and teachers are to pay no value-added tax up to an income threshold.

The AfD wants to change how culture is funded. The state should not tell artists which political topics to cover. This also applies to films. Groups that get state money should commit to democracy. Artists with low incomes should pay no value-added tax.

The AfD wants to fundamentally restructure and shrink public broadcasting. It is to provide only a basic service of information, culture and regional content, and without fees. The party considers public broadcasting in its current form too expensive and politically one-sided.

The AfD wants to change public broadcasting a lot. These are stations like ARD and ZDF. They should become much smaller. They should only offer news, culture and regional programs. People should no longer pay a fee for them.

The BSW wants to keep public broadcasting but restructure it and renegotiate the Medienstaatsvertrag (interstate media treaty). The license fee should not rise, top salaries should fall, and oversight should be kept at a distance from political parties. According to the platform, the aim is to win back lost trust.

The public broadcasters ARD and ZDF should stay. But the BSW wants to change them a lot. The broadcasting fee should not go up. The heads of the broadcasters should earn less. Political parties should have less influence on them.

The BSW wants to declare art, culture and cultural education mandatory tasks of the state and to anchor the protection of culture in the Basic Law. Freelance artists should get better social protection, and the Künstlersozialkasse (artists' social insurance fund) should be kept and reformed.

The BSW wants the state to be required to support art and culture. This should also be written into the constitution. Artists without a steady job should be better protected. The artists' social insurance fund should stay and be improved.

The CDU and the CSU want faster reform of public broadcasting, committing it to thrift, diversity of opinion and neutrality. Private media are to get fair competitive conditions.

The CDU and the CSU want to reform the public broadcasters. The broadcasters should spend carefully. They should show many opinions and report neutrally. Private media should have fair conditions.

The CDU and the CSU see cultural funding as a shared public task of the federal government, the states and municipalities. They want to preserve cultural venues in cities and rural areas, continue the culture of remembrance and add colonial history to it, and strengthen the creative industries.

The CDU and the CSU want to support culture. Museums, theaters and libraries should also exist in rural areas. Germany should keep remembering its two dictatorships. It should also remember the colonial era. Clubs should count as places of culture.

The CDU and the CSU want to preserve the cultural heritage of German expellees and resettlers and increase funding for remembering flight and expulsion. Late resettlers (Spätaussiedler) should continue to be admitted, and disadvantages in their pensions should be removed.

The CDU and the CSU want to care for the culture of expellees. Expellees are Germans who had to leave their homes in the East after the war. The federal government should give more money for this. Ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe should still be allowed to come. Their pensions should become fairer.

The FDP wants to add culture to the constitution as a state goal and establish a broader definition of culture that includes pop culture. Abroad, the Goethe-Institut network would continue to be funded, and an EU-wide fund for heritage conservation would be set up.

The FDP wants the constitution to name culture as a goal of the state. Comics, games and design should count as culture too. The Goethe-Institut centers abroad should keep getting money. The EU should start a fund for old buildings.

The FDP wants a smaller public broadcasting system limited to news, education and information. Fewer channels and less duplication would significantly lower the broadcasting fee. Young people in training or education would pay nothing.

The FDP wants smaller public broadcasters. They should mainly offer news, education and information. There should be fewer channels. The broadcasting fee should drop a lot. Young people in training should pay nothing.

The Free Voters regard culture as part of basic public services and demand secure funding from the federal government. Funding should become easier to navigate, and tradition, customs and the cultural heritage of German expellees should be preserved.

The Free Voters want secure money for culture. The federal government should pay for it. The funding should be easier to understand. The party wants to keep traditions and customs.

The Free Voters support public broadcasting but want to give fee payers a say. They should elect the broadcasting councils and decide on programming, the fee and the directors, which is meant to limit the influence of political parties.

The Free Voters want to keep public broadcasters. But people who pay the fee should have a say. They should elect the broadcasting councils. These are the bodies that oversee the stations. Parties should have less influence there.

The Greens want targeted support for regional media and local journalism, coordinated with the states. Nonprofit journalism is to be recognized in the tax code. The platform sees diverse media as a central space for democratic debate whose future must be secured in the digital era.

The Greens want to support local newspapers and broadcasters. The state should support the work of journalists. Nonprofit media should also get benefits. Nonprofit means they do not work for profit. The job of journalist should become more attractive and safer.

The Greens want to fund concentration camp memorials adequately and enable every student to visit a Nazi-era memorial site. Engagement with antisemitism and antiziganism is to be intensified. The platform points to the rise of historical revisionism and the passing of the generation of eyewitnesses.

The Greens want to remember the crimes of the Nazis. Memorial sites should get enough money. Every student should be able to visit a memorial once. The state should help pay for it. Remembrance should also include people with immigrant backgrounds.

The Greens want to continue addressing the injustice committed in the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany. Victims of the SED dictatorship are to gain easier recognition of long-term health damage. The Peaceful Revolution of 1989 is also to be remembered.

The Greens want to keep examining injustice in East Germany. A memorial for the victims should be built. Many victims still have health problems today. They should get recognition more easily. The courage of the people of 1989 should also be remembered.

The Greens want to continue addressing Germany's colonial history, especially the genocide of the Herero and Nama, in dialogue with the affected countries. A center for learning and remembrance is to be created. Communities of origin are to be involved in the return of cultural objects and human remains.

Germany once had colonies. Great injustice happened there. The Greens want to keep examining this. There should be a center for learning and remembering. Stolen cultural objects should go back, and Germany should pay the costs.

The Greens want to write culture in its diversity into the Basic Law as a state objective. Cultural infrastructure is to be expanded so that culture is accessible wherever people live. The party sees free culture as part of democratic life.

The Greens want to protect culture in the constitution. Everyone should be able to enjoy culture. This also applies in rural areas. Clubs and concert venues should get better rules. The culture pass for young people should stay.

The Greens want to complete the reform of film funding and create new support for games and small publishers. The independent scene is to receive more support through larger federal cultural funds. To counter market concentration in pop culture, the party relies on dialogue and regulation.

The Greens want to fund culture more. Films should get new rules and tax benefits. Video games and small publishers should also get money. Independent artists should get more help. The market for tickets and streaming should become fairer.

The Greens want to improve the social situation of cultural workers and secure the Künstlersozialversicherung (artists' social insurance) for the long term. Digital platforms would pay into this insurance. When protected works are used for AI, creators should be able to enforce their remuneration.

Many artists earn little. The Greens want to protect them better. Online platforms should pay into the artists' social insurance. Artists should get money when AI uses their works. AI means artificial intelligence.

The Greens want to fund public broadcasting adequately so that it can keep developing in the digital space. In the platform's view, it offers orientation against disinformation and false reports. The Greens also back a European platform for public-service information content.

ARD and ZDF are public broadcasters. The Greens want to fund them securely. They should also work well online. Europe should get a shared platform.

The Left wants to keep the broad range of public broadcasting while making its finances transparent. Media mergers would be scrutinized more strictly and journalists better protected. The party sees public broadcasting as a counterweight to the power of private platforms.

Public broadcasters should keep their full range of programs. They should show what they spend money on. Big media companies should not merge so easily. Journalists should be better protected.

The Left wants to make cultural funding a mandatory government task so that access to culture does not depend on income. Freelance artists would get binding minimum fees. States and municipalities would receive enough money to do this.

The state should have to support art and culture. Culture should be for everyone, including people with little money. Freelance artists should get a fixed minimum fee. Cities should have enough money for this.

The PdF wants to support independent artists and small initiatives with dedicated programs and build cultural centers in rural areas. An independent body would decide on grants, and cultural institutions would receive stable basic state funding.

The PdF wants to give money to artists and small culture groups. Rural areas should get new culture centers. An independent board should hand out the grant money. Culture institutions should get steady money from the state.

The PdF wants to make public broadcasting more efficient, cut duplicate structures and focus its mandate on education, information and culture. The broadcasting fee would stay, while executive pay would be capped.

The PdF wants public broadcasters to be smaller and cheaper. They should focus on education, news and culture. The party wants to keep the broadcasting fee. Top managers should earn less. There should be upper limits on their pay.

The PdF wants to reduce or end the influence of political parties on appointments to broadcasting councils. Elected independent experts and civil society representatives would take their place to safeguard the broadcasters' neutrality.

Broadcasting councils oversee the public broadcasters. Today, politicians also sit on them. The PdF wants to change that. Independent experts and citizen representatives should be elected instead. This should keep the broadcasters neutral.

The SPD wants reliable funding for public broadcasting, support for private and local media, and more media literacy. Platforms would have to disclose their algorithms and act against disinformation and illegal content.

The SPD wants to keep many different media. Public broadcasting should get secure funding. Local newspapers and stations should also get help. Big internet platforms should show how they select content. They should act against false news.

The SPD wants to write culture into the Basic Law as a state objective and give cultural institutions more support. Affordable cultural offerings should be open to everyone, and remembrance culture is to be promoted.

The SPD wants to put culture into the constitution. The state would then have to support culture. Culture should be affordable for everyone. The memory of Nazi-era crimes should stay alive.

The SPD wants better social protection and fair pay for artists and an expanded Künstlersozialkasse (artists' social insurance fund). The creative industries and German film are to be strengthened through tax incentives and reformed funding.

The SPD wants better protection for artists. They should be paid fairly. The artists' social insurance fund should grow. German film should get more support. Streaming services should have to invest in films in Germany.

Volt wants a thorough reckoning with Germany's colonial history and the return of looted or expropriated cultural objects and assets. Monuments and street names with a troubled history would be reviewed.

Volt wants to study Germany's colonial past closely. Germany should give back stolen art. Some monuments and street names should be checked. They may then get a new meaning or a new name.

Volt wants to write culture into the Grundgesetz (Germany's constitution) as a state objective. This is meant to give cultural policy more weight. Minority cultures, customs, historic monuments, and the independent arts scene are also to be protected.

Volt wants to put culture into the constitution. The constitution is Germany's most important law. The state would then have to pay special attention to culture. Volt also wants to protect the cultures of minorities.

Volt wants more people to be able to enjoy culture regardless of income, age, or where they live. This includes nationwide culture tickets for people with little money, extending the Kulturpass (culture pass for young people), and mobile services in rural areas. Arts education in schools is also to be strengthened.

Volt wants everyone to be able to enjoy culture. People with little money should get culture tickets. Young people should keep their culture pass. Buses with books and culture should travel to rural areas. Schools should keep teaching art and music.

Volt wants artists to be better paid and better protected. The plan includes a base fee for public contracts, a higher federal subsidy to artists' social insurance, and easier access to unemployment insurance. In the party's view, this secures cultural life in the long run.

Volt wants to protect artists better. They should get a minimum fee for public contracts. The federal government should pay more into their social insurance. It should be easier for them to join unemployment insurance.

Volt wants the culture budgets of the federal government, states, and municipalities not to shrink and to grow over the long term as needed. The party opposes cuts to culture. Funding is to come from the Bundeskulturfonds (federal culture fund) and from tourist taxes.

Volt does not want to cut money for culture. The federal government, states, and towns should pay at least as much as now. Later there should be more money if needed. Fees paid by tourists should also help culture.

Volt wants to preserve a diverse and independent media landscape, which the platform describes as a pillar of democracy. Media workers are to be better protected, and local newspapers and nonprofit journalism are to receive support. A new competence center is to bundle media education and advice.

Volt wants to protect journalists better. A new center should advise and train them. The center should also teach people how to use media well. Local newspapers should get money from the state.

Volt wants to reform public broadcasting with the involvement of a citizens' council. In addition, an independent public broadcaster is to be created at the European level to make EU topics more visible.

Volt wants to change Germany's public TV and radio. A council of citizens should have a say in this. Volt also wants a new broadcaster for all of Europe. It should report on EU topics.