Steinmeier criticizes the Trump administration's "populism"

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has criticized the US administration of President Donald Trump's treatment of academic institutions. "Every day, we receive new news from the US about restrictions on academic freedom," Steinmeier said, according to a previously distributed speech transcript, at the awards ceremony for the 60th national "Jugend forscht" competition this Sunday in Hamburg . In the United States, universities are being made to work more difficult or, as recently happened at the elite university Harvard, are being deprived of funding.

"The value of science as a whole is being called into question," the German President criticized the Trump administration's actions. "The world's most recognized, highly efficient science and university system in the United States is in danger of being carelessly crushed in the mill of populism and the fight against the so-called establishment." Germany must oppose this "declaration of hostility to free science."

Weimer warns of "global culture war"

Germany's new Minister of State for Culture, Wolfram Weimer, is also concerned. Looking at the United States and other countries, he sees threats to academic freedom, but also to artistic freedom—namely, a "global culture war," as Weimer calls it.

"We see this most clearly, of course, in the neo-nationalist dictatorships in China and Russia," Weimer said in a speech in Berlin. "But we're also experiencing it in the West. In the West, too, there are more forms of nationalism that are developing and taking on repressive traits."

Even if dictatorships are not comparable to Western democracies, there is a fundamental anti-freedom sentiment in the world's four largest powers— China , Russia , India , and the USA. Behind this lies "an attack on the Enlightenment," Weimer told members of the Order Pour le Mérite. With the Age of Enlightenment, from the 17th and 18th centuries onward in Europe, the demand for rational thought, among other things, took center stage instead of faith.

The interdisciplinary order Pour le Mérite comprises around 80 selected scientists and artists from Germany and around the world, including many Nobel laureates. The association was founded in the 19th century by the Prussian King Frederick William IV; its current patron is German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

AR/haz (afp, dpa, Federal President's Office)