Overview

• On August 1, Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer ordered all official communications in his ministry to drop gender asterisks and similar markers in line with recent orthographic guidelines.
• The ban affects about 470 staff in Berlin and Bonn, replacing gendered forms with a standardized non-inclusive address such as “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren.”
• Weimer justified the move by saying that enforced gender-inclusive spelling deepens societal divisions and amounts to a form of imposed language instruction.
• Opposition leaders including Bundestag Culture Committee chair Sven Lehmann and Left party federal secretary Janis Ehling condemned the ban as ideological posturing that distracts from substantive cultural issues.
• German Cultural Council head Olaf Zimmermann warned that focusing on minute spelling rules risks diverting attention from urgent challenges facing artists and cultural institutions.