Enlarge image
Berlin City Palace: This is how the credibility of the state project continues to crumble
Photo: Christoph Soeder / picture alliance / dpa
The Humboldt Forum in the Berlin City Palace has long been the topic of international talk - and seems to be doing everything to ensure that it maintains its bad reputation. In mid-May, a manager was released after dismaying complaints from employees caused a stir and should first be dealt with. Now it comes out: The manager was allowed to continue to be present in the facility - and there to watch the explanation, which has been going on for a surprisingly long time, up close.
This executive is the managing director of a subsidiary of the Humboldt Forum.
She was thus also the head of those employees in the visitor service, many of whom had apparently been harassed for months.
Of the 75 employees hired in November to look after visitors, more than 30 were dismissed in the following months or went on their own because they could no longer stand it in the »House of Fear« they described.
There were reports of a temporary ban on toilets, locked rooms from which one could no longer get out, and generally unsecured work in an allegedly completed castle, which, however, seemed more like a dangerous construction site to them.
The foundation contradicted many allegations, others admitted.
Superiors even kept lists of the visitor service staff.
It was criticized, for example, when someone stood up for colleagues or was allegedly undergoing psychotherapeutic treatment - or one could imagine that they might want a works council one day.
If a person fell out of favor, this was indicated by the words "very critical" or "reduced salary".
A joint research by SPIEGEL and the political magazine Frontal 21 revealed in May how many employees suffered from the working conditions in the castle.
At that time, Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters intervened; she chairs the Board of Trustees of the Humboldt Forum.
On May 17, the CDU politician sent a message through a spokesman that she was taking the "specific complaints ... very seriously."
The managing director in charge was released from her duties until the matter was fully and “unreservedly cleared up”.
Moral sham
That was true - and yet again not.
Employees were surprised that the manager was so present despite the alleged time off and, according to some witnesses, also that the mood did not improve.
When asked by SPIEGEL, the spokesman for the Humboldt Forum said that the employee mentioned had been released from her duties as managing director of the subsidiary and would remain so for the time being. But he also admits that she continues to work in the cultural institution. Because she heads the visitor service area and ticketing at the parent company, i.e. the Humboldt Forum. "She continues to perform this function, to which there were no complaints, and is also on site in this function."
This is a moral sham. Added to this is the fact that the said manager carries out activities in the Humboldt Forum that have a direct influence on the subsidiary where the alleged violations took place. At least the spokesman writes that she is responsible, among other things, for the overarching planning and strategy, while the subsidiary "is entrusted with the specific organization and implementation."
Michael Fuhlrott is Professor of Labor Law at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. If the Humboldt Forum were interested in serious clarification, it would not do so, he says. Because it could affect an examination of the processes if the person who is accused of misconduct is allowed to remain in a second, more influential post with the superordinate company and is actively active there during the investigation. The substantive link between the two activities increases the problem. And what impression, he asks, does this inconsistency also make on the employees, "do they still dare to speak openly about possible grievances?"
So the credibility of the 680 million expensive state project continues to crumble. There is also a second scandal: The planned presentation of objects from Africa or Oceania that came to the country in colonial times is more controversial. According to experts, there is a lot of blood on them, now they are arranged in showcases as if they were normal cultural carpeting.
The building itself poses another problem. Over the past few months, those responsible have repeatedly emphasized that it was long since finished, that only a few remaining defects had to be removed, nothing major.
And although the public is to flock into the house from July 20, the sanitary facilities and, above all, the security technology have not yet been approved in accordance with the "Award and Contract Regulations for Construction Services".
The spokesman also confirmed this on request.
However, the acceptance was "planned for the next few weeks", and the systems also functioned "flawlessly".
If they work as flawlessly as the processing of the working atmosphere in the castle - one should worry about the security of the castle.