Are the German-American centres facing closure?
VDAZ warns: “Cutting here means saving at the expense of democracy”
The drastic budget cuts planned at the Federal Foreign Office strike at the heart of transatlantic educational work: according to the current draft, funding for the German-American centres nationwide is to be almost halved, from 90,000 euros to just 50,000 euros for each of the eleven institutes. The direct consequence: fewer programmes, endangered locations and a devastating signal at a time when democracies worldwide are under great pressure.
“At a time like this we would need more funding for political education and transatlantic exchange; instead, cuts are being made precisely to programmes outside the capital,” warns Viktoria Harbecke, chair of the Association of German-American Centers (VDAZ). Since 2023, all German-American centres in Germany have for the first time been joined together in the VDAZ.
Indispensable work, an endangered future
Whether political discussion events, school projects, cultural and exchange programmes or language courses, the independent institutes reach well over 220,000 people a year with more than 3,000 events. They create encounters, foster a diversity of opinion and convey democratic values, including in rural areas from which others withdrew long ago.
“Precisely now, when transatlantic relations face enormous challenges, our work is of outstanding importance,” Harbecke continues. “We need more dialogue, not less.”
Cutting support for democracy opens up dangerous space
Funding from the Federal Foreign Office covers up to 85 % of the programme costs of the individual houses. A cut on the scale planned would lead to massive reductions in the programme at every centre. For some centres it would even threaten their existence, as it would for the Amerikazentrum Hamburg, the second-smallest German-American centre in the association. It also affects above all houses in structurally weak regions. The Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Sachsen, the first and only one of its kind in the eastern German states, would face great difficulties in continuing its work.
“Our task is to build bridges and to foster understanding between peoples for the long term,” Harbecke emphasises. “We stand for long-term educational work, for taking a position, for spaces to talk. If these places disappear, things will get loud, but no longer constructive.”
Civil society is not a budget item to be cut
The German-American centres are independent forums of civil society with deep democratic and regional roots. Their work depends on trust, diversity and local ties. Weakening them weakens a proven offering of political and cultural education and a network of essential subnational bridge builders. An open letter with nearly 160 distinguished first signatories from academia, politics, the media and culture underlines the point: the transatlantic centres do indispensable work across the country every day. They are regionally rooted and nationally relevant.
The VDAZ calls for the cuts to be stopped and funding secured
The VDAZ calls on the Bundestag and the federal government to withdraw the planned cuts, to stabilise funding in the short term at the previous level of 90,000 euros per institute and, in the long term, to consider an increase in line with the tasks involved.
“Our houses are not nostalgic retreats, they are workshops for the future of democratic coexistence,” says Harbecke. “Anyone who cuts their funding risks more than a few cancelled events; they endanger the foundation of a lived democracy.”
Members of the VDAZ
Amerika-Gesellschaft Schleswig-Holstein e. V., AmerikaHaus NRW e. V., Amerikazentrum Hamburg e. V., Atlantische Akademie Rheinland-Pfalz e. V., Carl-Schurz-Haus / Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Freiburg e. V., Deutsch-Amerikanische Gesellschaft Tübingen e. V., Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Heidelberg (Trägerverein Schurman-Gesellschaft e. V.), Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Nürnberg e. V., Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Saarland e. V., Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Sachsen e. V., Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum / James-F.-Byrnes-Institut Stuttgart e. V., Stiftung Bayerisches Amerikahaus gGmbH.
Contact: Association of German-American Centers (VDAZ)
Chair: Viktoria Harbecke, AmerikaHaus NRW e. V. · Deputy chair: Eric Fraunholz, Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Sachsen e. V. · Assessor: Dr David Sirakov, Atlantische Akademie Rheinland-Pfalz e. V.
Email: mail@vdaz.de · Website: www.vdaz.de