What do the parties in Thuringia say on culture and media?

The AfD wants to fundamentally reorganize public broadcasting, which it considers unbalanced, politically one-sided and too close to government. To do so, it wants to terminate the interstate treaties, abolish the broadcasting fee and sharply reduce the number of broadcasters.

The AfD wants to change public broadcasting a lot. Nobody should have to pay the broadcasting fee anymore. There should be far fewer public stations. They should only offer the basics, such as news. The AfD says public broadcasting today is one-sided and too expensive.

The AfD wants to write German as the official language into the Thuringian constitution and the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). This would oblige the state to cultivate the language and counter its neglect. The party rejects gender-inclusive language.

The AfD wants to put German into the constitution. The constitution is the most important law. The state should then protect and care for the German language. The AfD is against gender-inclusive wording.

The AfD wants to preserve the network of theaters and orchestras and fund it reliably. At the same time, it criticizes rising subsidies in individual cases and wants cultural funding arranged so that grassroots culture is not disadvantaged. It wants to end what it sees as a one-sided political orientation of theaters.

The AfD wants to keep theaters and orchestras. They should get reliable funding. But the AfD says some theaters cost too much. Public pools and Christmas markets should stay too. Theaters should not do party politics.

The AfD wants towns, municipalities and regions to have more room to fund culture themselves. It says this would counter what it sees as a centralized and politicized cultural sector.

The AfD wants more culture funding at the local level. Towns should decide more on their own. The AfD says politics interferes too much in culture. It wants to change that.

The AfD wants to preserve Thuringia's monuments, especially in rural areas, and calls for state support for municipalities. At the same time, heritage protection rules should not make private renovations unprofitable.

The AfD wants to keep Thuringia's monuments. The state should help towns with this. The rules for protected buildings should not be too strict. Otherwise owners cannot afford to renovate.

The AfD wants to clear the investment backlog at Thuringia's palaces, castles and gardens. It calls for adjusting current financing plans to higher construction prices and for a further special program after 2027.

Thuringia has many palaces and gardens. Many of them need repairs. The AfD wants more money for this. After 2027 there should be a new program.

The AfD commits to values of Christian origin and to the separation of church and state. It criticizes churches in Thuringia for taking political positions and sees this as a failure of their mission.

The AfD stands by Christian values. Church and state should stay separate. The AfD says the churches do too much politics. They should focus on caring for people's souls.

The BSW wants a parliamentary study commission (Enquete-Kommission) to examine whether public broadcasters report objectively and independently of government. The program cites accusations of one-sided coverage of COVID and the Ukraine war. The commission should also propose ways to strengthen diversity of opinion.

The BSW wants public broadcasters to be checked. The state parliament should set up a commission. It should check if the broadcasters report fairly. The BSW thinks coverage of COVID and Ukraine was one-sided.

The BSW wants to give students a culture card granting free entry to cultural institutions and rejects further cuts to cultural spending. The program sees support for culture as support for democracy.

Students should get a culture card. With it, they get into museums and theaters for free. The BSW does not want to cut money for culture. Rural areas should also have good culture. Artists should have fair working conditions.

The BSW wants to promote intercultural and interfaith dialogue and understanding between nations, especially in times of war. Partnerships, youth exchanges and local peace initiatives are also to receive state support.

The BSW wants people from many countries to understand each other better. This matters especially in times of war. Town partnerships should continue. Youth exchanges should grow. The state should support towns' peace projects.

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 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 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 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.

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 Left stands by public broadcasting and wants to secure its independence, while also reviewing the structures and costs of the regional broadcaster MDR. Local media, community media, and nonprofit journalism are to be supported.

The Left wants to keep public broadcasting. The broadcasters should stay independent. MDR should spend its money carefully. Small local media should get help too.

The Left wants to keep giving state money to private local radio and TV stations and to community media in Thuringia. The platform justifies this with preserving diversity of opinion and the costs of technological change.

The Left wants to keep supporting small radio and TV stations. Community media should get more money too. Community media are stations where citizens make the shows themselves. The goal is many different voices in the media.

The Left wants to bundle support for the media industry and create a media location agency. Film and media funding is to be expanded so that trained professionals can carry out their projects in Thuringia.

The Left wants to support the media industry in Thuringia more. A new agency should take care of this. There should be more money for films. Media professionals should be able to work in Thuringia.

The Left wants to increase funding for and investment in socio-cultural venues and the independent arts scene. Funding would in the future also cover adequate staff positions. The party sees these places, especially in rural areas, as important spaces for encounter, participation and democracy.

The Left wants more funding for small and independent culture venues. These include community arts centers and independent theaters. The state should also pay for staff. The party says these places matter most in rural areas. Choirs and clubs should keep getting money too.

The Left wants sector-wide collective agreements or the public-sector pay agreement (TVöD) to apply at all theaters and orchestras in Thuringia. In-house pay agreements would be done away with. The party links this to fair pay and secure locations.

The Left wants the same union pay rules at all theaters in Thuringia. Single theaters should no longer have their own pay deals. An in-house deal applies to only one theater. The party wants to secure fair pay this way. Theater buildings should also be renovated.

The Left wants museum and archive holdings checked more thoroughly for looted art. Collections would be stored in modern depots, for which a dedicated program is planned. Small local history museums are to be preserved as well, and heritage protection is to be brought up to date.

Museums and archives should check their collections. They should look for stolen art. This covers the Nazi era, East Germany and colonial times. The Left wants to fund new storage space for collections. Small local museums should stay open too.

The Left wants public institutions to pay freelance artists at least the fees that cultural associations set as a floor. The party also rejects any curtailment of the Künstlersozialkasse (artists' social insurance fund).

Freelance artists should be paid fairly. Public institutions should pay them a minimum fee. Cultural associations set the amount. The artists' social insurance fund should stay as it is. This fund helps artists with their social insurance.

The Left wants to preserve, expand and digitally modernize libraries across the state. The state and municipalities would each pay half the cost of digitizing public libraries.

The Left wants to keep libraries everywhere in Thuringia. There should be more services too. Libraries should become more digital. The state and the towns should pay for this together. Each pays half.

The SPD wants to offer the Thuringian family card permanently so that families can visit theaters, outdoor pools, museums and leisure facilities free of charge. In addition, a youth culture ticket would give young people free admission to cultural institutions until they finish their training or studies.

The family card should stay for good. With it, families can go to the theater, museum or pool for free. Young people should get a culture ticket. It gives free entry to cultural places. It is valid until they finish their training.

The SPD wants to make culture a mandatory task for municipalities and write it into the state constitution as a state objective. Thuringia is also to support a cultural state objective in the Basic Law, Germany's constitution.

The SPD wants to protect culture better. Cities and towns should have to take care of culture. Culture should be a goal in Thuringia's constitution. The SPD wants the same for Germany's constitution.

The SPD wants people working in the arts to be able to live from their work and is pushing for minimum fees, exhibition fees, and better social protection. Committees, grants, and commissions in culture and media are to be allocated on a gender-parity basis.

Artists should be able to live from their work. The SPD wants fair minimum fees. Artists should also get paid for exhibitions. Women and men should sit on juries equally often. They should get grants equally often.

The SPD wants to preserve Thuringia's theaters and orchestras and give them financial security through long-term agreements. Children and young people are to get free access to culture, and museums, music schools, and libraries are to be secured as well.

The SPD wants to keep all theaters and orchestras in Thuringia. They should get secure money for many years. Children and young people should enjoy culture for free. Museums, music schools, and libraries should stay too.

The SPD wants to preserve the memories of the persecuted and of prisoners and to expand the educational and research work of memorial sites. New ways of teaching history are meant to foster critical historical awareness.

Memorial sites remind people of crimes in history. The SPD wants to strengthen their work. The memories of the victims should be kept. New programs should explain the history to people.

The SPD wants to strengthen Thuringia as a media location and secure access for everyone to balanced, independent media. To that end, community media are to get more money and the boards of the public broadcaster MDR are to be made more diverse.

The SPD wants to strengthen independent media in Thuringia. Community media should get more money. These are stations where citizens make the programs themselves. More associations should have a say at the broadcaster MDR. Erfurt should stay a center for children's media.