The German Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann collapsed at the beginning of October during preparations for a state celebration in Stuttgart and was admitted to hospital. He will no longer be available to the new German government.
Neumann will not take part in the coalition negotiations to form a new German government. The retirement of the universally respected minister marks the end of an era in cultural policy in Germany. It remains to be seen who will succeed him in office.
CDU politician Neumann has been Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor and Commissioner for Culture and the Media since November 2005. Between 1989 and 1995 he was chairman and from 1995 to 2005 deputy chairman of the CDU's Federal Committee on Media Policy.
From 1991 to 1998, he served as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education, Research and Technology and subsequently until 2005 as Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on the Bundestag Committee on Culture and the Media.
