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Goethe Institute Gets New Head

DW Staff (act)September 18, 2007

Klaus-Dieter Lehmann will succeed Jutta Limbach as the Goethe Institute's new president on April 1, 2008. Germany's leading cultural centre abroad has recently been given a harsh belt-tightening treatment but it has already ventured into new regions in East Asia and South Asia.

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Klaus-Dieter Lehmann's masterpiece has been to develop Berlin's museum island
Klaus-Dieter Lehmann's masterpiece has been to develop Berlin's museum islandImage: PA/dpa

The current president recommended Lehmann for the position after announcing her resignation in July, after six years in office.

The Goethe Institute's executive board in Munich voted unanimously for Lehmann's replacement by Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, who has already been the Institute's vice-president. The Foreign Ministry in Berlin has already given its go-ahead.

Science to culture

Now an experienced cultural manager, the 67-year-old Lehmann originally studied physics and mathematics; later working as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for several years. He later took a second degree in library studies.

In 1973, he became the director of the Frankfurt University library and later the general director of the German Library in Frankfurt.

He is currently the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation -- Germany's biggest cultural institution. The development of Berlin's museum island is his main success.

Language is culture

But his first task at the Goethe Institute will be unpleasant -- by 2009, he has to put reforms, which have already been decided upon, into place and cut down the 280 positions by 50.

He aims to devote his time to the German language because, he says, cultural work is actually language work. "We shouldn't always think German is on the losing side. We don't want to touch English, but it's a question of the second language."

"We're an export nation -- we're represented all over the world. We've also represented culture all over the world. One of my main tasks will be to promote the German language via these two factors -- exports and culture."

Lehmann will also be able to build on the success of his predecessor Jutta Limbach by, after so many years of saving, expanding into East Asia and India.