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Vote — how and where

Is the school a particularly protected area for political education?

On February 5th, the school mailboxes in Hamburg received an email with a ‘School letter’; He appealed to all school leaders and teachers. On the letterhead of the ‘Authority for the Interior & Sport’, in the Olympic campaign look and signed by the pre-project team for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the following was announced to the faculty on the occasion of the upcoming referendum:

  1. Teaching materials Olympic values and the Hamburg application concept
  2. Support for inclusion in school sports events
  3. Call for Volunteering Teachers and students as volunteers.
    Those interested were able to
    olympia-paralympics@sommerspiele.hamburg.de turn around.


Teachers are encouraged to use materials before the Olympic referendum on 31 May.

On 4 March, the pre-project team already sent interested teachers Teaching materials; Also in Olympic campaign look. As a result, at the end of the week of 9 March, all other teachers should be centrally provided with these teaching materials by the School, Family and Vocational Training Authority.

School letter and advance notice refer to materials on a citizens' referendum vs. a referendum, which is factually wrong: The upcoming democratic process is a referendum on citizenship. This is correctly indicated in the teaching materials. The start of voting (24.04. vs. 22.04.) is partly incorrectly indicated in teaching materials.

Classes 8-10 will be completed at the end of the lessons under the heading “What could you do now?” for: Further information only to the Olympic application page the Senate in the dress of its sports concept (Active City). Source links in the materials are either in a 2:1 ratio or exclusively from Olympic-friendly sources.
In the Beutelsbach Consensus, the political education in the school context, it is said that pupils should not be influenced in the sense of a political position (Prohibition of indoctrination).

Neither the documents for grades 8-10 nor those for grades 11-13 promote the discussion of the tool of the Citizenship Referendum in its olympic application-related development and so far exclusive application context one. None of the documents bind this Civil society instrument of the opinion One that will be applied in 2015 and also in 2026, and which will bring to the fore the controversy of the issue in particular. The Beutelsbach principle of The Law of Controversy calls, in the school context, for politically and socially controversial topics to be presented controversially in the classroom as well.
The democratic requirements for an opinion cross the signature requirement of 10 thousand (as with a popular initiative) with the collection period of 3 weeks (as with a popular petition) and are therefore a special feature of this procedure.
NOlympia had submitted almost 20 thousand signatures for his statement to the Land Returning Officer on 21 February. In contrast to the Senate and Citizenship, NOlympia has been allowed to amend the text of the submitted opinion since 15 January, the date of the request for the opinion, no longer change. At the same time, the Senate has only begun on 11.03., further details (in particular for financing) to be published.

“The State bodies It is because of the Constitution Failed, Acting in an official capacity with regard to elections with political parties; or Identifying Election Candidates and to support or combat them using state resources, in particular: by advertising the decision the Voter to influence”(BVerfGE 44,125). “An increase in public relations close to the election campaign […] continues to be considered as a sign of crossing the border into illegal campaign advertising.”

A school tour with panel discussions by pro- and contra-representatives like in 2015 (It’s your choice tour) was rejected by the governing parties and the CDU for 2026 (Drs. 23 _03284)

Eckart Maudrich, spokesperson for NOlympia:


‘At a time when the governing parties are moaning about the supposed shackles of the neutrality requirement in popular decisions, it is astonishing how unreflectively the school authority of the Hamburg Olympic Advertising Department allows direct access to the teachers, allows volunteering advances, contributes to factually incorrect moderation, hands out teaching materials on Olympic application paper, which have a clear source imbalance in favour of the Olympic Advertising Department and Olympic-friendly sources and completely drop essential historical contexts of the tool Citizenship referendum and civil society influence under the table while the Senate ensures that the Olympic CI comes from school materials and advertising 360-degree from one source with 18 million euros Olympic budget and drones of impregnated air.”