Swiss+Harms #1 : Podcast ohne Namen
Episode 1 – Podcast Without a Name
Swiss: Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, Swiss and Chris Harms, Podcast #1, the first episode, we’ll do exactly an hour, right?—as we agreed.
Chris: Yes! Now it starts.
Swiss: I will set the clock now and we stop after an hour.
Chris: Cool.
Swiss: What’s up? Chris Harms… how are you?
Chris: Um… do you really want to know how I am doing or is this just the phrase?
Swiss: No, I really want to… don’t just say something, but tell me how you really feel—and afterwards maybe explain or say, why you think that the two of us have to make a podcast.
Chris: I don’t know that myself yet, but how am I doing? I am tired. I am tired. I am SO tired.
Swiss: Suicidal or tired…? (in German the word for “suicidal” literally translates to “tired of life”)
Chris: No, not suicidal, but I am just tired, and not even sleeping would be enough for that, neither would be three weeks of holidays; I have the feeling, I am like… I wake up each morning with the feeling that I need to completely get away for two months. Like, really totally away, on my own… that’s how tired I am. BUT I still am totally down to do something, but I’m tired. I don’t know if that makes sense to you—
Swiss: Yeah.
Chris: —but currently I am tired.
Swiss: Both of us have children, both of us have poorly paid jobs—of course we are tired. We are the ones at the bottom. If you talk about “the ones at the bottom”, what’s expected from them… that’s us, you have to admit it.
Chris: I’m not feeling bad, though! I’m doing good, but I notice that I’m exhausted.
Swiss: Yeah.
Chris: I am tired.
Swiss: OK. Do you think, this is also because… is this only about your own life, that you—I dunno—maybe work too much, or does it also have to do with what the world is doing to you at the moment?
Chris: I don’t know. Maybe it’s actually getting old; I get the feeling I’m going up some stairs, and when I went up the stairs to the first floor in the gym, I already… I really need to pull myself together to do something, to be physically active.
Swiss: Crazy. That is—
Chris: I don’t know why.
Swiss: That’s crazy. That’s totally different for me. For as long as I can remember, if I don’t do sport, if I don’t move, I become unbearable. I feel like shit, the people around me get their share, and I always get to laugh if people say, “I can’t get motivated to do sport…”
Chris: I do sport. I do it. And afterwards I feel great.
Swiss: Thus… exactly!
Chris: But I… normally I didn’t need to get myself motivated to do it. But currently I need to motivate myself.
Swiss: That’s crazy. I never really had that, and I’m really grateful for it, because I simply… I have the drive to do whatever. I started doing martial arts again some months ago—
Chris: That’s not visible.
Swiss: —and each time—I’ll show you later!—each time I have bumps and a black eye; and it’s great fun, I must say.
Chris: What kind of martial arts?
Swiss: I don’t want to say that here, because that’s still quite uncommon here in Hamburg, and then people would go there and then—
Chris: Ballet, I see.
Swiss: Ballet. That kind of martial art.
Chris: But how are you doing? Like, how are you REALLY doing?
Swiss: Good. How am I really doing?
Chris: No, how are you really doing?
Swiss: I actually also… I sleep really badly. I have always slept poorly, but currently I sleep very little, very restlessly, and I do think that this is not just because of the things that are going on in my life, because, on the one hand, we have a lot ahead us this year, and I’m totally excited for what is coming, but, on the other hand, I look at the world and at the moment everything feels very existential. And for a bit I get the feeling that this “cocktail” of actually cool things that are happening, of bad things that have happened in the past few years, of things that are currently going on in the world and also in Germany; that this is somehow putting me into a very primal kind of combat mode, you know. I have the feeling that I have to be vigilant, that now is not the time to sleep, now is the time to—
Chris: Is that world-weariness?
Swiss: —to hunt. No, it’s not weariness, it’s rather… I dunno, it feels a bit like “the non-calm before the storm”. Wow, dude, what a song title! It feels a bit like the non-calm before the storm, I have the feeling of unrest before the storm now.
Chris: That’s actually really good. This is actually a very good link to the main problem we have right now—it is a luxury problem, but “the non-calm before the storm” sounds like a great name for a podcast.
Swiss: Exactly, but—before you jump right in there—tell the people why the two of us have decided to make a podcast, or some podcasts. We had not yet; people should not expect us to do podcasts for like six years or something…
Chris: True.
Swiss: We’ll see. But we just said, let’s do it a few times, as each time we see each other, we have cool topics. So. I just wanted to add that briefly. But, why exactly?
Chris: You actually already just said it. On the one hand, I generally ask myself that, why does one have to do a podcast in the first place, why do I have to do one?
Swiss: There are so few of them.
Chris: Nobody wants to listen to that anyway. I think, if I did one on my own, it would be more successful, but… anyway. I also want to drag you along somehow. Slipstreaming is nice too. But—
Swiss: Chris, that’s very nice of you.
Chris: But that’s exactly the thing. Whenever we sit down together and talk, afterwards I have the feeling that the conversation was so interesting, because we are such uninteresting—such interesting guys, that people should have actually been listening. I really think that every time, as we deal with such interesting topics, “Actually, this should have been broadcast.”
Swiss: I also love this, when I tell you something—that’s how it usually goes, I tell you something, then I see those big eyes and I notice that—
Chris: He doesn’t get anything at all *laughs*
Swiss: No, how this realization hits home with you—it’s really intense. I kind of wanted people to be able to participate in this too. Exactly. I think there are some things that connect us both. You have to say, on the one hand, that we’ve both been making music for a very long time, in one constellation or another, and somehow—
Chris: Oh music… you call that music, OK… yeah yes. Yes exactly.
Swiss: We’re making music, and you make such a strange… never mind. Anyhow, we’ve been doing this for a very long time already and somehow, I have that with you too… I appreciate that you’re kind of a stand-up guy too, you know? You make music because you really have fun doing so. And you have always done so in the past years, even if you have paid extra in the process, you always did it, and I find that pretty cool.
Chris: And what connects us is that we’ve always done what WE wanted, we have never been controlled from the outside.
Swiss: Exactly. And that we get hated massively.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: The two of us… we are both known in the scenes we are in—you are in this schlager-burlesque—
Chris: Exactly, schlager-burlesque.
Swiss: —you are in this schlager-burlesque scene, while we are in this hardcore punk scene, where we are definitely seen as traitors by very narrow-minded circles.
Chris: It’s funny. On the one hand, we are—both bands—we are, on the one hand, being treated as “scene traitors” by the gatekeepers of the respective scenes, with us it’s more than just one scene, and, on the other hand, we’re also both traitors to the fatherland. That also. We are actually faced with the same problems from the same direction. That’s, on the one hand, the brown-blue side (Nazi/right wing), and, on the other hand, the hardliners of the respective subcultures.
Swiss: Soup-Cultures. That’s true, and this actually brings us to the first point already, as we should now follow the schedule, this is the first episode, there one should talk about these kinds of things. We should also be honest towards the people and say, “Now look, we don’t have an actual title that we like.”
Chris: No, and we also don’t have—briefly, to go back on this some more—we also don’t have a fixed concept yet. We actually want… I’ll put it this way.
Swiss: You are not allowed to say that!
Chris: Yes, I am. We want to take you guys out there along with us on this journey… No, we actually thought, let’s just start it, instead of thinking everything to death and then come up with a supposedly perfect concept… as everything that we’ve done with each other so far was born in the heat of the moment.
Swiss: From our love.
Chris: Our love, exactly. We wrote a song like “Schwarz Tot Gold” in basically twenty minutes.
Swiss: That’s true.
Chris: So simply just: doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it.
Swiss: That’s true.
Chris: Therefore: back to you now.
Swiss: Exactly. Let’s have a look… right! We had some… people, you have to help us. We first make a page, “Swiss und Chris Harms.”
Chris: “Swiss und Harms.”
Swiss: “Swiss und Harms”, I’m sorry, exactly. 100%. “Swiss und Harms”, we’ll use this for Instagram at first.
Chris: A working title. Exactly.
Swiss: You can write in the comments of the first episode we release which title you think would be cool. We’ll read you a few that have been buzzing around and that we thought were cool.
Chris: I have here a huge list (he uses the same word that in German is used for a boner)—a list of titles.
Swiss: Exactly. But you can, of course, if you have something better—I think, the people should also participate—so if you have cooler ideas, of course, there will also be mean things, but we can handle that. Read out what we have.
Chris: I would say, if we then choose the title from someone from outside, then we have to… I dunno, there has to be some kind of profit. We at Lord of the Lost always raffle out bananas, for example.
Swiss: Bananas?
Chris: I think, it could be a whole banana tree…
Swiss: To match the music, you mean?
Chris: Yeah, right, exactly. Well, I have here… I’ll carry on reading and you… you can comment. We came up with this together in a brainstorming session, and it couldn’t be more versatile. Possible titles: “Do you remember—earlier”, “Musician’s lifestyle”—oh my God, that’s super hackneyed…
Swiss: “Do you remember—earlier”… that could as well be some kind of AfD-Podcast. I don’t find that good.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Swiss: I don’t know who had that idea.
Chris: That was you.
Swiss: “Do you remember—earlier”… like “when blonde German women were still able to walk through the park on their own.” (He says this in a Hitler-like tone.)
Chris: Exactly. “Punklords”—that sounds a lot like RTL 2 (A German TV station which is known for trashy programs). “The past was cooler.”
Swiss: That goes a bit with the music theme: back in the day, your old records, they were much cooler, blah… but somehow… that’s annoying
Chris: Exactly, like “The first album was the best one.” This also resulted to “sold out” or “sell out”, which I still don’t find shitty. “Can you make a living from it?”—I still find that one outstanding
Swiss: The first question that every musician gets to hear… and it’s funny, if you are considered part of certain subcultures like us, you meet people who ask you, “What do you do for a living?”—“I’m a musician.”—“Really? And you can make a living out of that?”—and you think, “Yes, yeah, have you ever seen the car that Chris Harms drives? Of course, you can make a living out of that! Meanwhile you can even FLY off it!” Carry on.
Chris: It’s the same as at the family reunions, where you get asked, “Do you also play shows a bit further away, in Lüneburg (a city like 55 km away from Hamburg) for example? Where did you play your last show?”—“In Beijing.” That was nice. “Schoolboy report”, “Schoolband report”—I find these pretty cute, too. (Referring to “Schoolgirlsreport”, an adult movie from the 1970s which claims to be based on the non-fiction book of the same name.)
Swiss: *sneezes* Excuse me.
Chris: Bless you. Then we immediately got to “Report of Commerce prostitution”, “The Commerce Hustlers”, “Commerce Report”, “Art and Commerce”. I think “Commerce Sluts”, “Commerce Bitches” or “Mainstream Sluts.”
Swiss: They’re OK.
Chris: We get that very often in the comment sections—I find that too negative as the title of a podcast. “Scene Traitors”, “Does one have to know them?”
Swiss: I find “Does one have to know them?” cool. I also had that on my list. “Does one have to know them” has just been thrown into my pot, keep going, please.
Chris: “Yes, No, Maybe”. One I also liked is “Scars and asterisks”—but then people would expect that it’s in English.
Swiss: Yeah, no. That’s not for our people, they only speak German.
Chris: “Große Freiheit” (famous street in St. Pauli/Hamburg).
Swiss: Boring.
Chris: “Cry about it“, that sounds—
Swiss: Too youthful, look, I think this doesn’t fit.
Chris: I know a band who has both, both words (referring to “Heul doch” [“go cry about it"] in German) as song titles. Super cringe.
Swiss: Yeah, but that was ten years ago.
Chris: Super cringe.
Swiss: Nobody says “cringe” anymore anyway.
Chris: “Self-Help Group.” I also like “Cool Story, Brother.”
Swiss: Yeah, it’s OK.
Chris: “Concerned Stranglers” (“Besorgte Bürger” would be “Concerned Citizens”, while “Stranglers” are “Würger”).
Swiss: That came up yesterday, right? “Concerned Stranglers.” The… the… what do you call that? The murderer’s podcast. Who is afraid of getting caught and who is talking about it in the podcast. My DNA could be identified here and there.
Chris: True Crime. “Old, rich and sad”, I find that cool. “20359”—only people who live in St. Pauli will get that—it’s cool, but you can’t do that. I also like—honestly—
Swiss: How many are there left?
Chris: A lot.
Swiss: I think, we should… shouldn’t we just say the highlights?
Chris: OK, listen. Um, highlights. “Friendship plus.” You also added “Toxic Unicorns.” I don’t know why. I also like “Nobility destroys” (based on the old saying “Adel verpflichtet”—“Nobility obliges”), but that’s too political.
Swiss: And we’re not aristocrats either.
Chris: Nope.
Swiss: At least not that we know.
Chris: “Declared Dead Bonvivants“ (another saying “Totgesagte leben länger”— “those declared dead live longer” has here been altered to something that rhymes in German).
Swiss: I found this one very cool, “Declared dead Bonvivants”; I find this really cool, you can comment on “Declared Dead Bonvivants.” Our working title which I liked best was also a bit… “Enviers make the man” (another saying, originally: “Clothes make the man”)—until I found out—
Chris: A Jennifer Rostock song.
Swiss: That this is a song by Jennifer Rostock, and that always…
Chris: Also not an unknown one. That’s the thing.
Swiss: Even if it was. I think, you know how happy I was when we came up with this, it’s so clever—but you know, if someone else has done it before, it has always been this way, then it’s no fun, so actually, it’s with a heavy heart that we need to drop “Enviers make the man” out of the contest.
Chris: Yes, that’s unfortunate… but I also have to say, Jennifer Rostock, they have some really good song titles.
Swiss: Now don’t go brown-nose here. Let’s carry on.
Chris: “Can’t be bothered, but (on the) guest list”, a cool song title. “Glitter and Moria”, very nicely political, but I think of The Lord of the Rings there, in this case it’s simply… “Yeah, nay”, I think that’s quite good, too. “Narcissist and Goldmund.”
Swiss: I like that. The book… I need to briefly explain—
Chris: Hermann Hesse. “Narcissus and Goldmund” is a book by Hermann Hesse.
Swiss: Exactly. It’s about Narcissus and Goldmund, one of them is a man with a strong heart, who follows his instincts and emotions, and the other is the thinker, the cool calculating thinker who does not allow any feelings and so on, their lives work in parallel, which is very exciting, and—I think, it would fit with us—as… you are a bit … you make well thought out music, cool, cold, thoroughly calculated, while I make the songs of the heart, you know.
Chris: That means… you are Narcissus?
Swiss: But to twist that around and say, it’s not Narcissus but Narcissist, which all of us are, if we are honest, every artist is a narcissist, and also a Goldmund, because we have golden voices. I found that cool, but, of course, you also have to—
Chris: Narcissism is so hard.
Swiss: Yeah, and that title is also a bit of “intellectual wanking.”
Chris: Yeah, right, you won’t be able to keep up with that.
Swiss: That’s why it came from me, so that I could…
Chris: “Late Detonators, Duds.” I also found “Blasphemous Sisters” cool, but that one already exists.
Swiss: “Blasphemous Sisters” would have been my favorite.
Chris: Yes. Absolutely.
Swiss: As we all know how well you can chat shit behind people’s backs, that would have fit.
Chris: Yeah. Preferably about you, and you never notice it. I tell you what, I say the best of things when you’re not there.
Swiss: You can use this podcast for that now.
Chris: “Dirty Laundry”, I found that quite good as well, but it’s somehow also like “The Podcast from the Kiez—Dirty Laundry.”
Swiss: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris: “Anonymus Workaholics.”
Swiss: That’s crap to me because I’m not a workaholic.
Chris: “Anonymus Anabolics”, there we went from the “weightlifter’s podcast” to the “Pumperpodcast”. At some point we got to “Swiss Harms”, or what I also liked was “Swiss and the Other One.”.
Swiss: But that’s just a reference to my band (Swiss’ band’s name, “Swiss & die Andern”, translates to “Swiss & the others”), you know, that’s somehow…
Chris: We also had “Schwarz tot gold” actually, but that is—
Swiss: Exactly.
Chris: —very much…
Swiss: We also want to be political, but we don’t want this to be a totally political podcast.
We want to reserve the right to talk about everything we want, maybe also to be finally able to talk about the secret love to a band member, without having to think that this actually has to be about politics. I would also like to bring up stories like that here. I would say we should just let people go with this input, they can write “Swiss” into the comments—
Chris: Absolutely.
Swiss: “Swiss and Harms.” Subscribe on Instagram in any case, also to our podcast on Spotify, as that’s what we’re doing in the first place.
Chris: Exactly, we’re doing that in the first place.
Swiss: And you can also write down in the comments what you like best; maybe you have a better title. Even if we here are the artists, maybe you are even more creative.
Chris: I actually just found—to finish this now from my point of view—“No Time”, as we have just spoken about it.
Swiss: Yeah. “No Time.” I like that.
Chris: Yeah. “No Time.” That also works a bit for this fast-moving throwaway society in which we currently find ourselves.
Swiss: To which we also adapted with our music.
Chris: Yes, of course.
Swiss: I like that one, too, and we definitely should… I like the duration of an hour too, as… we should do an hour. It will often happen that both of us are on tour, and for those who don’t know your band that well yet… it’s often the case that you are—I dunno, in Guadalajara, playing a show, and I am in—
Chris: Bückeburg.
Swiss: In Prussia, playing a show there.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: That means that sometimes the sound might be a bit more “adventurous”, because…
Chris: We need to talk on the phone.
Swiss: We cannot guarantee that it will always sound like this. But, first of all, I thought about what I would like to talk about. And I think you can’t get past one topic at the moment and that is definitely the topic of the shift to the right in Germany (politically, towards national socialism and racism), the uncovering of Correctiv1. And I think we have an obligation to just talk about it here too. It’s nice that the all the centrists are now finally showing their true colors, and not always leaving it to the left, and saying themselves, “We don’t want that.” And I would just be interested in your thoughts. How you feel in this world right now, even as a St. Paulian who originally moved here in Pinneberg. How you feel and um—
Chris: *laughing* Moved from Pinneberg…
Swiss: Where you have the feeling that, as a Pinneberger, you can and want to change something here too.
Chris: So, basically, it’s a topic, it opens up a topic that we should make time for another time. This is the topic, “Should musicians express themselves politically?”; to which I simply say, “Yes!” But that can be discussed another time because that’s something we’re often accused of, like “You should make music and not politics, leave it to the professionals!” Every waste removal engineer, every baker, every hairdresser is allowed to have an opinion, but musicians are not. So, the thing that I actually see, and that makes me feel so bad about this pull to the (political) right, is that I don’t see it as a pull. A pull is something that happens suddenly, that shocks you in some way. It’s a very strange, soft process. There’s a mycelium that spreads underground in the forest and then at some point, when it rains, when a problem happens, then the fungi come out. Very small, very unimpressive. And suddenly there are a lot of them. And that’s actually something that really terrifies me.
Swiss: Mushrooms aren’t just found in the forest—
Chris: Yes, OK, exactly…
Swiss: —sometimes it grows somewhere else…
Chris: Exactly, on tour…
*Both laughing*
Chris: What I wanted to say is that for years everyone was afraid that suddenly around every street corner there would suddenly be not 3 Nazis standing there with combat boots, white shoelaces and raising their hand, but that suddenly there would be 10 or 20. But that’s not the case at all, there isn’t this obvious pull to the right, I notice it’s quite strange in the middle to lower classes of society. Especially when you talk to people. Even at family parties, when there are distant relatives, people you don’t really have anything to do with. And you’re in a small town, or a village because you’re somehow someone’s third cousin. And then you notice how people talk. And they have all suddenly become so right-wing, and they don’t even notice it in every statement, and what is being propagated is actually the AfD (radical right-wing populist party in Germany) agenda from start to finish, and they don’t even notice where they stand. They don’t even notice where they are, and that makes me feel so bad. Because I have the feeling that somewhere like a mycelium, everything has been infiltrated so slowly and it is now rising so high. And certain things have become normal and that makes me feel bad, because it’s so difficult to fight, because it’s like an invisible enemy, you know? Like the air you breathe. You can’t fight that either. And that makes me feel bad, and it’s actually something that really hurts me every day. I don’t notice it that much in St. Pauli.
Swiss: Although you also have to say, in the old days in our Schanze (district of Hamburg) you really had in the older generations, the old kiosk owner or whatever, it was common that they were really heavy Nazis.
Chris: Yeah, but that was the old kiosk owner.
Swiss: Yes, but I just want to say, the tradition, I still remember it! How we were chased away with “fuck off”…
Chris: “You fucking ticks!” (Here, “tick” is a derogatory term for punk.)
Swiss: Yes, “You migrant children, get away!” (the German word “Kanacke” is a racist term for foreigners, not translatable) and so on. “They just steal!” That was the case, but it was always the same reply: “Yes, just leave them alone…” because he’s from another era and so on.
Chris: Well, I’m talking about the 20–30-year-old people…
Swiss: Exactly! Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt you—
Chris: No, you didn’t.
Swiss: —just finish your thought. What I notice is that I still remember 10 years ago, when the AfD started, things used to somehow not be taken so seriously. I still remember when it—
Chris: That was one of those NPD2 offshoots where you thought it would die soon anyway!
Swiss: Exactly and somehow, when they had things back in Rostopck Lichtenhagen3, it was always like, “Look at them!”, you know? Such drunken Nazis, bums, drunken mob that egg each other on and you thought—
Chris: Like cartoons!
Swiss: Yes, exactly, they don’t exist! I have no idea. I also remember that friends went on a soccer trip and were in a village somewhere and were attacked by Nazis. A friend of mine got hit in the head with a bottle and had a huge scar. So that’s always been there. But what just makes my stomach ache personally is how the AfD and the political right are no longer these drunks who somehow only hunt punks in villages. But there is now an educated class of well-trained people who really have an agenda that they follow. And I really think that in the last few years the discourse and the language have changed so drastically and I think that’s what’s shocking. So, if you now hear a Friedrich Merz (German politician, CDU [Christian Democratic Union]) speaking, or Christian Lindner (German politician, FDP) speaking in front of the farmers (referring to the farmers’ protests in some EU states), it is unbelievable what kind of language they use. And I think this is a completely new phenomenon; it wasn’t possible to talk like that a few years ago, and especially on such a broad level. So, if you look at the CDU, that simply repeats these kinds of things—
Chris: Meh, the CDU and also Linder or something, that’s so close to it all of a sudden.
Swiss: Exactly! And you get the feeling that you somehow want this, this eternal search to win back the AfD voters, you know? I always think, hey guys, at the end of the day there are still 80% or in the east of Germany 70% of the people who don’t vote for the AfD. Just take care of them! Try to win them for yourself! But it’s like with artists, everyone has their own recipe, because they are successful with it, but if I imitate it, I won’t be successful with it! And that’s the way it is with the actual Christian Democrats—Where are your Christian values?—who suddenly start talking and use words that make your ears bleed. And you realize that these are just such helpless attempts to get this AfD voter back, and I find now, at the latest after these revelations from Correctiv, from the talking circle, as the AfD calls it—
Chris: Yes, they trivialize it, it’s so hardcore!
Swiss: —a few private people who are talking, at the latest after that and after the deportation plans and expatriation plans, which are clearly unconstitutional, you must say very clearly…
Chris: “Remigration”, they called it, right?
Swiss: Yes. So, you see, here we are again with changing the language. Such a terrible situation, which is presented in such a cryptic way. Remigration, as if it were a dental treatment, goes by quickly.
Chris: That sounds really nice.
Swiss: Sure! It could also be a French word *tries to say remigration with a French accent*, but it is a terrible situation! And this kind of speech has arrived among centrists and in the middle-class, and makes people talk like that and people stand behind it like that. And even now the AfD doesn’t distance itself from it, they say, “No, no, that’s what we want!”
Chris: For example, someone like Höcke (German politician, AfD), who deliberately uses neologisms, Hitler neologisms such as Volksverderber (Vocabulary from the Nazi era, roughly meaning subhuman), uses them in his speeches and tries to reinstate them in the German language. But that’s a different level now, but only briefly mentioned in passing.
Swiss: All I want to say is that I’ve reached that point before the middle class; you can’t talk to these AfD people, and anyone who votes for them…
Chris: That would now be my question: what are you doing, have you ever been to a family party like this—you’re sitting at a table in a restaurant and there are a bunch of people from different circles of friends and then you have people who aren’t obviously right-wing at all, who don’t really know it, but who toy with such thinking. And that’s what I mean. There are a lot of people, who have such ideas and don’t even realize how right-wing it is. Do you discuss with these people?
Swiss: I haven’t experienced this that often, to be honest, and I’ve seen the wildest people because of climate change. All that was missing was the next thing: “The Earth is flat!”
Chris: It’s always the same! It’s always vaccination, climate change, and “the Earth is flat” is not that far away from that.
Swiss: Exactly! “Too many foreigners” and so on, and I actually, I have to say, I grew up in an area with a lot of migrants. And I have, well, my daughter is also half-Turkish, and I’ve often noticed, for example, in those areas, that people say “No, I think the AfD is quite good”, and also with such a revanchist mindset: “Yes, my parents didn’t have everything that all the Syrians got here now. It’s too much, Germany is no longer safe!” And you think hey, guys, you can use any study from anywhere! Germany is safer than ever before! We are doing better than ever before! Around the world! There are studies that have only looked at this. Everyone in the world is better than they were 100 years ago!
Chris: Oh yes, all of this “Everything was better back then!” is nonsense.
Swiss: This narrative that is being told and is now being repeated so randomly. It’s like the Trump supporters! At the end of the day, people vote, and I really came to this opinion, the people who vote for AfD know exactly what they are voting for! These are not protest voters, but rather people who consciously vote for a racist party. Who long for a stronger hand, somehow, who have the feeling that “everything is going to waste here, foreigners everywhere” and so on. Not separating real life from their personal experience. So focused on their own personal misfortune.
Chris: Do you think every AfD voter is aware of what they are doing? I don’t think so. I actually think, and these are the people I’m talking about, at these family parties, when you hear them talk like that, where I say that they carry so many right-wing ideas with them without knowing how right-wing it is. I think there are a lot of people who simply feel well represented by the AfD. They don’t really look at the core ideas, but rather read through the agenda and think “Oh yes, what they want actually makes me feel better”, and the three of them come from a small town, some of which are foreigners. They’re working in the kitchen and you can’t see them. And then there’s maybe the kebab man and he might have made a fool of you—
Swiss: But he is good!
Chris: Yes, he is good, but the woman wears a headscarf, which they don’t like and “we don’t actually need more of them. And if the AfD somehow protects us from more of them coming, that would be really nice.” Now I’m showing a stupid picture, but I don’t think that every AfD voter… So, you’re giving them a lot of sense there.
Swiss: Well, first of all, I have to say, I think most people don’t even read this. Most “little” people in particular don’t read this! Because if you read through it, and one argument is always “Yes, finally a party that does something for the people here.” Bro! The AfD!?
Chris: Yes, then they would realize that the AfD is doing a lot for itself!
Swiss: The AfD is a FDP for Nazis! So, it’s also so funny that the AfD is now supporting the farmers’ protests… hey…
Chris: This is basically an upper-class party…
Swiss: Yes! You voted against everything! Against all subsidies. You know? I can smell a Pied Piper from 1 km! And everything they do… they (the AfD as a party) were dead too! The traffic light coalition (red-yellow-green or red-green-yellow coalition, in Germany means a coalition between the SPD, the FDP and the Alliance 90/The Greens Party) unfortunately, if you look at the heating law and so on, unfortunately, it messed up in a few really stupid places. Although, I’m really one who says that not everything they did was shit. Their communication sucks. But you also have to look at the time. So, a lot of what people are upset about comes from 16 years of Merkel. You know? You can’t change the German political landscape in 3 years! I have the feeling that it’s not so much about AfD or not AfD. But nowadays it’s a kind of culture war between those who have recognized what concerns this world, what concerns the environment, and that we can’t continue living the way we’ve done so far, that it’s no longer possible. We have to somehow find new ways and we also have to deal with the fact that people come from other countries and we have to somehow…
Chris: But what you’re saying is already linksgrünversift! (a derogatory term used by right-wing people for everyone who isn’t right-wing and votes for a center-left party or the left-wing party “die Grünen”)
Swiss: Yes, very left-wing, maybe. But that’s actually a real shame, you know—
Chris: It’s really a shame, yes.
Swiss: —the normal, cognitive—
Chris: —the empathetic above all!
Swiss: —output somehow demands to get there. How do we organize ourselves here? How do we organize ourselves in a world that is actually moving closer together? In fact, the only problem is closing the gap between the rich and the poor, which is constantly growing. So to speak, how do we manage to give everyone on this earth a dignified life? And then on the other side there is a… I would say the other side of the discussion, of this culture war, there are people who have the feeling that it is not ready yet or who do not see the necessity behind it, that we can no longer go as far as we did before. And that’s what the AfD does in the end. Everyone does that. The AfD is just one party, that’s all of them, the SVP in Switzerland, that’s what Trump does in the USA, Orbán and whatever they’re called. Who want to sell people a utopia of “If you vote for us, then you don’t have to change at all. You don’t have to make any compromises, you can continue to call your Zigeunerschnitzel a Zigeunerschnitzel (Zigeuner = Gypsy), you can eat as much meat as you want, drive your diesel; and we’ll also send away all those foreigners who are the reason for your misfortune here. And everything will be the same as before.” Where also the question is, which before do you mean?
Chris: Yes, which one or how far back can you go?
Swiss: Exactly. I actually think that we have a culture war between these two currents in society. One current actually longs for a bit of autocracy, for a hard hand from above that will sort everything out for them, and that is actually overwhelmed by democracy, and they think that they will fail under democracy. The others, yes, see this as an opportunity to change this world for the better together and also recognize that this always goes hand in hand with making compromises, even with themselves.
Chris: Where I see a really big problem is that if you look around now and think, “OK, who can do it better than those who are sitting up there right now, that you have to choose from, who can do it better?”
Swiss: Those up there is also a “great” name…
Chris: Yeah, those up there is also a great… (“Those up there” refers to all politicians in the German federal parliament, and is often used in a derogatory way, also more and more from the right-wing) But who can do it better? So honestly, every time there’s an election, I think to myself, alright, I can totally understand why there are protest voters. They say that you always choose the lesser of two evils anyway, because what you, or what I like to choose, rarely has a chance of getting an absolute majority anyway. And then the question is, who can do it better?
Swiss: So, I’ve always voted for Die Linke (democratic socialist party), out of conviction.
Chris: That’s exactly where this problem comes up: sure, cool, you can do that, because it will never have an absolute majority.
Swiss: Exactly, you can, of course, vote strategically. I have always voted for Die Linke, because they agree with a lot of my principles. I have the feeling that most of the problems that we struggle with actually result from this gap between the rich and the poor. There are too few people, or very few people, who have far too much—
Chris: And more less…
Swiss: —too many people who have too little. *Chris agrees* I think it’s actually, it sounds like “Ah, Swiss the red sock” (red sock is pejorative for a left-wing person)—it actually needs a class struggle rather than a struggle of Orient against Occident or white against the rest of the world, the white people or the white race. What is needed is a fairer distribution throughout the world. In contrast to other parts of the world, we have far too much, you know? The reason why I’m, of course, also dissatisfied with Die Linke is that, and here we are also with myself, with my personal history as a musician in a band that is linked to the left-wing, that people in this scene are always fighting each other.
Chris: This is the case in almost every scene.
Swiss: I can only speak from my experience, I can’t say anything about the right-wing scene or the metal scene, I can only say about the left-wing scene, which actually serves so much of the zeitgeist in its convictions in many aspects, but doesn’t manage to do so to make it clear to people. This is becoming more and more irrelevant because others are doing it, others are using this zeitgeist and exploiting it for their own benefit, in some really disgusting ways. This happened to me too. I’m now at a point where I think I can be a left-wing person without being part of this hardcore bubble. Because I don’t feel like this hardcore bubble can make the difference on a big level. Because if that were the case, then the AfD wouldn’t be so strong. Then not so many people would be apolitical. Then the scene itself would be much more of a close-knit. And that hurts me, but I can’t change it either. That’s my feeling about it, I just know…
Chris: But doesn’t that perhaps have something to do with growing up in general? If you look at it, almost every scene and especially political movements are mostly influenced by the young, who have a completely different level of anger and act much more out of emotion. And I notice it, at least in myself, the older I get, the more I always ask myself, what does the person in front of me think? That doesn’t mean that I want to talk to everyone and always discuss the same thing with everyone, but I ALWAYS try, no matter what, to take different points of view, and to see them, and to see something from a different perspective. And I think that has a little something to do with growing up, that maybe your heart is still involved in a lot of things, it beats, but you also have the feeling that I can’t just focus on this one thing. Every group sometimes comes with so many dogmas that lead to it dismantling itself or whatever. I mean, political movements in particular, where freedom is always at stake, often take away this freedom through these dogmas. And I think it has a little something to do with growing up and also, similar to musical scenes, the longer I do it, the more I feel like I want to allow myself to be anything. I don’t want to live according to the guidelines of the early goth scene from the 80s. I don’t want to conform to the standard metal guy and walk around with my denim vest with metal band patches on it, and if I don’t do that then I don’t belong to it. In the same way, I would also like to have the freedom to say that when I look at the parties, back in politics, I think what you are doing is good, but I think that’s shit, and that’s exactly the heart of the matter for me, for example, that I often don’t know what to vote.
Swiss: And in the end, you end up with the CDU! (sarcasm)
Chris: And of course, in the end, I ended up with the CDU. *laughs* No, for me, in the end, it was actually mostly alternating between Die Linke and Die Grünen. If we speak so openly… But the fact that I, to close the loop, that has something to do with growing up. To say that you take different points of view and see different things from a bird’s-eye view and not just stand at the front with your fist in the air and shout for or against it because you have this youthful anger in you that drives you to do that.
Swiss: I think that is the main problem of our time is that everyone is sitting on their own opinion, so narrow-mindedly sitting on their opinion, like sitting on a throne. Saying “That’s what I think, I’m convinced of it and you don’t have to babble at me because I know what morality is…” Well, morality has shifted so much. In times when calling someone a Gutmensch (in the right-wing scene this is primarily used to criticize people who are committed to humanism) is meant as derogatory, you have to ask yourself… I have the feeling that we as a society are currently at that point, that we are searching, fishing in the clouds—what actually is morality? What is moral? The AfD says “It is moral for the German people and for the people who have lived here for hundreds of thousands of years to create a safe place. Full of work and a prosperous economy.” But at the end of the day, any moralism is also something disgusting and something exclusionary. ISIS also thought, or thinks, they are doing the right thing.
Chris: That’s what I was about to say—morality is always a matter of cultural perspective.
Swiss: But not always! I think there is one basic moral point that we can always agree on and that is humanity, and I think when you say—
Chris: Hmm… yeah, but you say that. That’s the problem. If you look at culture clashes, how cultures come together, I see it that way too, but do you mean every person in every culture in the world, and I don’t want to point fingers because I would have to know all the cultures for that. But I’m sure there are people who grow up and don’t grow up with this umbrella concept of “humanity is always important.”
Swiss: No, what I’m getting at, phew, yes, what I’m actually getting at is, of course, there’s this saying “Food comes first, ethics later.” *Chris agrees* On the other hand, I am already convinced that this is the case, and it is actually very nice to look at Christian values, the original Christian ones like “Thou shalt not kill.” And of course, I think one thing is so cool that I have such a reverence for Christian values—
Chris: Yeah but…
Swiss: —no, no, let me briefly—
Chris: —you don’t have to be a Christian to find certain Christian values good!
Swiss: … Hamas rides into the Israeli border and kills Israelis…
Chris: … at a music festival…
Swiss: … at a music festival…
Chris: Crazy…
Swiss: … because it sees these Israelis as part of the big problem, and as part of a vendetta, and also sees them as part of a… so they see every Israeli as an enemy. This is based on a moral self-image because you think you are doing the right thing.
Chris: Because they grew up like this and never learned any different.
Swiss: I can, me personally—well, that’s a lot of political disgusting stuff too, so you see…
Chris: Yes, sure, I wanted to say—it can be.
Swiss: In any case, there are, of course, other aspects that come into play as to why they do it. And there are also political aspects that are free of this “Hey, I want to fight for my people here.” What I just want to say is that they also feel morally superior to the others. *Chris agrees* And an AfD politician also says, “I have the truth here and I’m convinced that this is the right thing for everyone!”
Chris: And therefore moral, yes.
Swiss: And if that means that so-and-so has to go, then that’s because I believe it’s right. And it’s no different for a left-winger, you know? *Chris agrees* I’m on the left and I think that we have to take power away from those in power, so to speak, and share it among everyone. So, not me, but that’s a basic statement that you could perhaps make. And then it will just continue to come together in even smaller groups, more and more elitist and more and more shitty. “That and that is sexist.”, “That and that is anti-feminist.”, “This and that is racist.”, “A blonde woman who has dreadlocks is cultural appropriation.” I don’t even want to discuss this now—
Chris: That’s a topic in itself…
Swiss: —I just want to say, people are convinced that it is like that. This actually creates a culture of exclusion because people don’t look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture would actually be with all people—how do we manage to live happily together on this earth, to have enough to eat for everyone, and that everyone feels comfortable here—
Chris: Because the world is still big enough for all of us!
Swiss: Still big enough for all of us, yes. That doesn’t happen and people are like, I don’t know… This band, actually cool, they’re against Nazis but you can’t support them, no you even have to cancel them because they take their shirts off when they play shows and also the people in the audience do it. And this always leads to a moral component being struck down and “You’re not allowed to do that!” I think that’s very, very difficult and we’re not doing ourselves any favors. Morality is so absurd. One more example and then I’m done: I remember a left-wing punk festival where we played. After the show, which was really cool, a young lady with blonde dreads came up to me and said, “You take your shirts off, you’re fucking sexists!” And then I said casually, “OK, but what about the cultural appropriation you’re committing?”; “That’s completely different! Blah blah blah.” And I thought, “OK, that’s how it is… Of course, she’s just building her cosmos of values”, and the funny thing is that everyone does that somehow and still thinks they can do it to others, set an example for people. You know? *Chris says yes* What’s your opinion? Do you think children are allowed to play “cowboys and indigenous people” in kindergarten?
Chris: Well, that’s actually a topic in itself, we’re welcome to talk about it, but—
Swiss: We’re topic jumping hard now… But I have an opinion on this and would like to know yours.
Chris: I want to say one more general thing about this very briefly, because—
Swiss: 14 minutes!
Chris: Only 14 minutes? (remaining time)
Swiss: Yeah, great!
Chris: I would like to say a general thing about this, because very often, which I also find difficult in this society, it is always expected that everyone immediately has a perspective, an opinion, and you can’t take the time to think. Sometimes I have to take the time to develop a perspective—
Swiss: Or not having any!
Chris: Yes, exactly! And also to research and sometimes people say, “Yes, you are sometimes so opinionless, and without perspective, and you always try to understand all sides.” And yes, I’m that guy, I want to first, when I hear different things, even if I have a feeling at first, I always try to understand first, even in a dispute situation, why the other person sees me that way. Why does he see me like that? What might I have just done wrong? And I don’t always try to take these perspectives and sometimes I just have to say “I don’t have an opinion yet!” *Swiss agrees* I don’t think you should be afraid of that. You are not without an opinion or a flag in the wind if you are still forming one and may never form one because there are simply too many perspectives. But to put it briefly, this humanity that stands above it, for me it actually always stands, I usually call it empathy, the trying to pay attention to how the other person feels.
Swiss: That’s actually Kant, um, is that Kant? The categorical imperative. I’m not doing anything to you, to put it bluntly, that I don’t want you to do to me.
Chris: Yes, that’s right!
Swiss: In this way, this “Together” can be regulated very well.
Chris: But to get to your question, with “cowboys and Indians”, that’s what it should boil down to. Or let’s talk about, I don’t know, what about actors? When an actor plays a Jew? Plays a black person? A Nazi? I don’t know if this isn’t actually a topic of its own, because it’s really a big question. If we start it now, then…
Swiss: Really? I actually have a pretty… about the acting thing, I don’t know, but for example the kindergarten topic: there was also the discussion that when you have a child, you know what it’s like, then carnival comes and the child wants to go as Winnetou or as Pocahontas or whatever. Especially in our neighborhood, as you yourself know, even in kindergartens, there are often discussions about that. *Chris agrees* Because then there are parents who say they think it’s cultural appropriation and that they don’t want that. And I have a very clear opinion on this: I think it’s always about these topics, and this also applies to dreadlocks, it’s always about the way it’s done. Personally, I think that if you, as a white person, do your dreadlocks because you are enthusiastic about this culture and the Rastafarians, and putting aside from the fact that the Vikings used to do their hair that way too. I think if you do it with respect and do it in a way that you’re worshiping that in a way, I think that’s fine. And I think it’s just as special in a globalizing world. So how do we want to devalue that morally? I find it’s the same thing with children. So, if your child, hey, admires this indigenous culture so much and absorbs it all and would like to playfully put himself in this role, what is there to condemn about that? And that’s completely different than the bachelor party, painting themselves black and saying “Ugah ugah!” and making fun of it! Do you know what I mean?
Chris: Yes, I know what you mean and I absolutely agree with you. I see it the same way and it always depends on why you do it. And now I’m back with these changes of perspective, that I say, on the one hand, I can also understand if there are people who say “Hey, then we can also don’t wear jeans, only the cowboys and the Indians are allowed to do that or that’s the worker’s pants” and whatever. But you also have to say—yes, but the workers’ trousers do not come from an oppressed culture. So, and this shifts the perspective again and then I think to myself, “OK, how hurt is someone who’s from a culture where they have dreadlocks that they really feel hurt by it?” And from our perspective, from the privileged world, we say “Yes, but if you just admire it and think it’s beautiful” maybe someone like that feels hurt. In principle I’m there… Let me explain briefly!—
Swiss: Yeah, yeah, I just want—
Chris: I agree with you in principle, I see it that way too, it’s just so difficult to take the perspective of an oppressed people or a part of it, a perspective that you can never take as someone like you and me! And now we come to a completely different perspective, I have to jump back and forth because I always ask myself this—there are certainly people who may not know this. They just saw dreadlocks in a picture of someone, whether it was a black person or a white person, black hair or blonde, red, pink, I don’t know, they saw it once and they just think it’s hot. And they don’t know anything about it. And you can’t blame the person for that!
Swiss: But do you have to? So I have to completely… So at the end of the day it’s… dreadlocks like I said… I actually read somewhere recently—
Chris: That was an example!
Swiss: —that this discussion is actually not that clear, because the Vikings, for example, braided their hair *Chris agrees* and so on. That’s not what I’m trying to get at, I totally see your point…
Chris: No, I just wanted to say, very briefly, there are some cases where you have to assume the presumption of innocence. Maybe a teenager or adult, whatever, has seen dreadlocks and doesn’t know that it’s somehow part of a culture and is somehow problematic, and just thinks it looks cool. You can’t blame the person for not knowing anything about it! You can’t always know everything!
Swiss: You’re totally right! It’s just a bit funny when some white people in Germany get really upset about the fact that a child comes to a kindergarten as an Indigenous person, because they think—
Chris: How does it hurt you?
Swiss: —to what extent is it hurting you right now and are you now assuming that people in North America or any Indian tribes or Indigenous tribes must be hurting now? That also has something patronizing about it. I completely understand your point, I think that too, also in this discussion, and I absolutely see your point—that I can’t estimate the way someone feels, nevertheless I believe that it is the same here, and everyone has that responsibility, also both sides—the one who is injured and the person who injured, the person who likes to get dreadlocks or whatever. I think they both have a responsibility to listen to each other *Chris agrees energetically* and to talk to each other properly. And that, I think, is something that is often neglected in this discourse. People who are then accused, so to speak…
Chris: This often includes the question “Why?” Don’t immediately accuse, but say, “Why are you doing this?”
Swiss: Exactly that and very quickly people are simply shouted at. As a human being, dehumanized and denied any morals because your child went to carnival as Winnetou—"What kind of people are you? You Nazis! You can just vote for the AfD!”, do you understand? And I believe that this is also where we drive people apart or that people who ultimately should walk side by side in many things are driving themselves apart. That fits with our times again, with what you said before, it’s sometimes difficult to find a perspective. I think what we forget these days, or it is often forgotten, is that there isn’t just right and wrong, black or white, but there are a million shades of gray in between! *Chris agrees* And sometimes you don’t know where morality begins and where it ends, and you have to discuss it somehow, and that only happens when you realize that your own position may not be universal either.
Chris: This actually comes full circle in a wonderful way, because we come back to the question, “How are you?” Because I think there are a lot of discussions of this kind and problems, some of which are far-fetched (they make some jokes about hair, related to the German way of saying to this) because some people just aren’t doing well. I think it’s partly just looking for a way to let off some steam. How many people start talking about shit with dangerous half-knowledge and a lot of opinion and very little idea, just because they are frustrated?
Swiss: But now you call it shit. That also devalues a bit the discussion that is about it.
Chris: Yes, of course, and I now pay respect to the haters, fuck *laughs*. But do you know what I mean?
Swiss: Yes, I do…
Chris: I don’t want to, and I’m not saying that talking isn’t important. I’m just saying that I think a lot of this unfiltered anger, and I’m not talking about sensible communication, also comes from dissatisfaction.
Swiss: 100% and I think, to perhaps conclude this, I think that despite everything, I think we have to talk about all these topics. And I think racism, sexism, these are very, very elementary, also women’s image, which fortunately has changed in the last 100 years, no, not 100… yes, to some extent, depending on… Definitely in the last few years has changed, which I think is great. And how we talk about racism and what kind of mindfulness we are slowly gaining. I think this is very important! I think, despite everything, if you say I’m part of a left-wing scene, sometimes… So different problems also have different relevance, in my opinion. Right now, in my opinion, it’s really important to close ranks and say, for example, when it comes to topics like this: “OK, we might need some clarification on that too, let’s clarify that!” But we agree on one thing—we don’t want to live in a Germany, *says Germany like Adolf Hitler, Chris laughs slightly*, in which people who have a German passport are deported.
Chris: Yes! “Remigrated”
Swiss: Would be remigrated. We also don’t want to live in a Germany where hatred of refugees is taking hold again and can simply be said so casually in everyday speech. A world—
Chris: And antisemitism is actually something that some people think is cool!
Swiss: Yes! We as a community want to live in a world where we can talk to each other! Where you don’t have to tolerate everything to death. In which, of course, you also—
Chris: The tolerance paradox is also a topic in itself, at some point, yes. Definitely.
Swiss: —in which you can simply say, despite everything, that we are a humanistic community, and I believe that centrists in particular have to move a little to the left in order to shake off this overly right-wing discourse. I think everyone has to stick together, everyone needs to have points that need to be discussed, and that may not be as urgent as this right now…
Chris: They have to move so far to the left that they at least get back to the middle. So, do you know…
Swiss: Yes, yes, yes, these people, I don’t even know if you can get them back?
Chris: No, probably not, but that’s really the thing—
Swiss: I don’t want to bring them back! I sometimes have, and this might be a topic for the next podcast, “Civil War now—Yes or No?”
Chris: Should you want to talk to Nazis?
Swiss: Can you still live with these people? These are definitely topics that we should discuss and—
Chris: What does time say?
Swiss: Hey, we still have a minute and a half, I have to say I’m really surprised that we should…
Chris: Hey, I still had so many funny things! I have a few more fun things for next time.
Swiss: Yes, come on, next time we’ll make it a little funnier.
Chris: But we have to find a name, that’s very important!
Swiss: Exactly! Hopefully by next time you’ll have spammed us with names on 'Swiss & Chris - The Podcast' or 'Swiss & Harms'. 'SwissHarms', 'Swiss & Harms - The Podcast'…
Chris: But we already have really hot pictures online, I find them really hot, I have to say. *Swiss agrees* Yes, actually, we only do it for self-promotion because it’s cool.
Swiss: Like everything. An opinion is quickly formed, qualified…
Chris: Hey, I’ll just listen to you, and say yes, and then it’ll be fine.
Swiss: Yeah, that’s cool. So people: subscribe on Spotify, follow us on Spotify…
Chris: Are we on YouTube too?
Swiss: Hmm, I have to think about that…
Chris: Everywhere, right?
Swiss: Yes, let’s do it on YouTube too.
Chris: Podcasts are available everywhere.
Swiss: Follow us on Instagram, write us your favorite titles for this talk.
Chris: Listen to Lord of the Lost, not to Swiss & Die Andern!
Swiss: Exactly, Lord of the Lost… You can listen to Lord if, it has to be said, you have a high tolerance for pain, *Chris laughs loudly* when it comes to cheesiness, and also watch her videos for one or two makeup tutorials.
Chris: Awesome! *both laugh*
Swiss: You’re actually not allowed to say what I just said.
Chris: Nope and after the commercial—Tom Cruise.
Swiss: We’re now at 60 minutes, it was fun, Diggi (slang used to refer to a friend), we’ll do that again!
Chris: Yes! Bye!
Swiss: Have a nice evening, bye!
1: CORRECTIV is the first non-profit research center in German-speaking countries that conducts long-term research into grievances in society and promotes media literacy. It uncovered a secret meeting of the AfD, at which not only politicians but also high-ranking business people were present and discussed various racist, antisemitic, and human rights-violating things that they want to implement through politics in Germany. Since then, people have been going on demonstrations to stop the rise of right-wing radicalism. There is a demand for a ban on the AfD party, as parts of it are deeply racist, anti-human and anti-democratic. A petition to examine the ban was accepted by the Bundestag (as of February 4, 2024). CORRECTIV – Recherchen für die Gesellschaft
2: NPD is a now banned far-right, neo-Nazi, ultranationalist German party.
3: The riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen between August 22nd and 26th 1992 against the Central Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (ZAst) and a dormitory for former Vietnamese contract workers in the so-called Sunflower House in Rostock-Lichtenhagen were the most massive racist and xenophobic attacks in Germany after the end of the Second World War. Click here for more information.
Translation: Margit Güttersberger, Jeany Fischer
Proofreading: Gaëlle Darde