Just before the crucial debate on the draft budget for 2025 a new serious case weighs on the co-government. Liberal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Wächinger forced the resignation of the Undersecretary for Education and Research and professor of Philosophy, Ethics and Theory of Logic at the University of Tübingen, Zabine Döring.

In fact, this morning he officially requested the resignation of the deputy minister from Chancellor Olaf Solz. According to a representative of the Ministry of Education a little while ago in the government briefing, the trust between the minister and the deputy minister, responsible for university research, has already broken down.

Punitive cut of research funds?

The reason is the leaks of internal correspondence of Sabine Döring, which came to light on the ARD public network’s Panorama show, in which she appears to be considering the possibility of withdrawing university funding from scientists who had recently supported the student sit-ins at the Free University of Berlin in an open letter of Gaza and against the Netanyahu government.

In the same letter, they criticized the actions of the University rector and the police who violently broke up the squatters. According to the government information, the internal investigation by the legal service of the Ministry of Education was requested by Deputy Minister Dering herself, and only a few days ago the minister, who defended the freedom of research and opinion, was informed about its content.

Despite the journalists’ questions about what the Ministry of Education knew about the disputed research and also about its own attitude towards the content of the letter, the representative of the Ministry. of Education was content to state that “the German government does not comment on the content of open letters”.

Min. Education: I did not know and I did not give the order

The new revelations that are causing a new uproar within the government actually come today, Monday, on a day when the annual report on the state of Education in Germany was scheduled to be presented, in the presence of Minister of Education Stark-Batzinger.

The minister finally gave the “present” and after an hour of information, she was forced to answer the persistent questions of journalists about the case. She emphasized that she knew nothing about the movements of the deputy minister and that she became aware of the content of the correspondence in question on 11.06.

In fact, as he said publicly, “I did not know about nor did I give an order for the investigation”, stressing the constitutional protection of university freedom. “I wholeheartedly support academic freedom,” she said without elaborating on her previous statements, in which she criticized the move by university students to co-sign the open letter.

The opposition demands the resignation of the minister as well

At the same time, the pressure exerted by the official opposition of the Christian Democrats is increasing, calling for the resignation of the Minister of Education Stark-Batchinger herself for the case of the interruption of the funding of research funds to scientists who co-signed the controversial pro-Palestinian letter.

This is because, even if she herself did not order the investigation into the possible termination of funding for researchers who supported the occupations, but the deputy minister, unbeknownst to her, and the minister herself had recently stated in an interview that she had doubts as to whether the attitude of the university , who supported the students’ right to freely express pro-Palestinian opinion by criticizing the actions of the administration of the Free University, was in line with the German Constitution.

In his first reaction, the president of the Conference of Chancellors, Walter Rosenthal, described the internal actions of the German Ministry as worrying in any case. Education against university freedom.