• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Tourist chief fired

Tourist chief fired

01 January 1991

Tourist chief fired
artdoc November=1995

Federal Economics Minister Gnther Rexrodt announced to the
German Parliament 31 May that he had fired the head of the German
Tourism Centre in New York, Ulrich Geisendurfer. Mr Geissenderfer
was accused both of economic mismanagement and of racist, sexist
and antisemitic incidents under his management. The incidents
include distribution by employees of material denying that the
Holocaust - the systematic mass murder of Jews in the second
World War - had ever taken place, as well as sexual harassment
by Mr Geissendörfer himself. The most recent scandal to rock the
Tourism Centre was the use of a study on potential target groups
for tourists to Germany which included the phrase: "no Jews,
Blacks, Hispanics and Asians". Mr Rexrodt said the phrase was
"unacceptable". Yet whilst the dismissal was greeted by the
opposition Social Democrat party, the use of the study in
question was defended by Mr Rolf Olderog of the ruling coalition
Christian Democrat Party, who claimed that saying that the ethnic
groups in question were "negatively described as unreceptive [to
tourist information on Germany] had nothing to do with racism".

Berlin Antiracist Initiative, June 1995 Update