Swiss + Harms #10 : Mein Opa war ein Nazi
Episode 10 – My grandpa was a Nazi
Swiss und Harms – Zwischen Tour und Angel
(translator’s note: in German you literally say, “between door and hinge” for “in passing,” they altered it to “between tour and hinge”)
Description of the episode:
In episode 10, Chris and Swiss deal with the darkest periods of their family history. How do you deal with your grandparents' Nazi past? Can guilt be inherited? Where does one's own responsibility begin and where does it end? Many questions that need to be answered. The two also talk about the future plans of their bands, which will probably leave some fans shocked. Tune in and recommend us!
*Intro playing, Power Metal Version*
*Bottle opening sounds*
Chris: Moin! Cheers! Hearty Welcome to the Anniversary Episode 10, after ten years of Swiss… and Harms, “Zwischen Tour und Angel,” the podcast. We’re looking back at ten years—
Swiss: What did go well, what went badly.
Chris: Yes, exactly, let’s have a look at what went badly.
Swiss: There is probably much more on the debit side than on the credit side, but—
Chris: Exactly. We’re in St. Pauli again, live and “directly,” as Ferris would put it.
Swiss: Yeah.
Chris: And… how are you doing? Like, for real, actually?
Swiss: Well, how am I doing? I actually have to say first of all that I totally—because you've just mentioned it with “10 years of Swiss und die Andern…” Hey, what am I talking about, it’s—
Chris: 10 years of Swiss und Harms— “Swiss and the other one” (“Swiss und die Andern” literally means “Swiss and the other ones”)
Swiss: *laughs* 10 years of Swiss und Harms! Bro, this is our tenth episode.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: And I am approached so often, also by—
Chris: —about me.
Swiss: —fellow artists who ask me who or what you are supposed to be, right, and then I say—*both laughing* no, that they are listening to our podcast.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: And it’s totally awesome, if people—
Chris: If they want to cringe.
Swiss: No! It’s also musicians who you respect, and they say… they play it cool, *in a cool tone* “Yeah bro, I have listened to it for a bit, yeah, pretty cool”—and then they can reflect on something that was discussed in total depth in the podcast, and I think that's why you make a podcast, so that other artists can listen to it and immerse themselves in our lives, because THAT is the most important thing for me, that other artists immerse themselves in our lives.
Chris: Exactly, also the validation.
Swiss: The validation.
Chris: Yes, exactly, that’s the most important thing.
Swiss: That gave me such… I then said: “Hey, sure, great… do you want a photo?” He was like: “Huh, what bro, what photo?!” I was like: “Yes, of course you want a photo, you probably want a photo for your family!” He says: “No, I don't want one at all.” I'm like *aggressive tone* “Come here now, let's take a photo!” Well, apart from that… I can say it here, we were actually planning on doing a B-tour in fall—
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Swiss: Bro, and I’m so done.
Chris: Maybe briefly for the people out there: B-tours usually mean the smaller cities.
Swiss: B-tours are in the smaller cities.
Chris: Which are between the big ones, where you have done an A-tour.
Swiss: Exactly, you’re doing an A-tour, that’s the cities about which you know that there’ll be the most people coming, and at the B-tour you’re doing cities… we will… hey, we are going to Regensburg (city in Bavaria) for the first time.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: In Bremen (city in the North of Germany) again and so on, but—
Chris: Yeah. Not up for it.
Swiss: Bro, I’m not in the mood for Regensburg and Bremen. No, just kidding, of course we are up for it, but I somehow… The last few years have somehow been so draining and I've already noticed on the tour, and over this year and the last year, that I'm somehow really done in terms of strength.
Chris: People noticed that.
Swiss: People noticed that at my performance—
Chris: *laughs*
Swiss: —and I’m now trying to save what can still be saved.
Chris: *laughs out loud*
Swiss: And me—bro, I'm just… I'm so up for it, you know, I… you know, with us—with you it's a bit like that too—we've always slipped these albums in a bit between tours. Writing the music. And I said to the guys that I'd like to just make music without knowing: “Ah, there we have a deadline, and there we have to rehearse for the tour”—
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Swiss: For example, I would like to take a lot of vacations this year, I want to go hiking several times, I want to go to Turkey, I want to… and I want to make music without knowing: “Yes, in three weeks everything has to be…”
Chris: As it used to be, because for the first album you have no pressure yet, nobody is waiting for it, because you have all the time in the world.
Swiss: Well, and that’s when I said, I would just like to do something… without making… without having a plan: “when, how, what,” I just want to make music, bro.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: A bit along the lines of… I recently saw a documentary about someone who started crocheting during Corona and was really good at it.
Chris: Yeah, yeah. I was knitting during Corona.
Swiss: Knitting! Yes! And she said that all her friends then said: “Hey, you crochet, so cool, you have to make a business out of it…!” and then she said: “No, why does everything I enjoy always have to lead to something?” You know? And that's how I want to make a bit of music right now, just without this feeling of: “it's leading to something here and there,” just like you said, this feeling of “I make music, I vibe, I let it go, you know, just like that.”
Chris: The thing is, if you make your hobby your profession, everyone thinks that’s the biggest dream you can fulfil, and on the one hand that's true.
Swiss: 100%
Chris: But on the other hand, you lose your hobby. You still have—
Swiss: You lose your hobby.
Chris: Exactly, you have a profession that gives you joy, but you lose your hobby. And if you allow yourself to somehow say: “Of course it's my job, but I also want to take the time to make it feel like a hobby again.”
Swiss: Yes, and I just want to try things out a bit, you know?
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: I just want a little bit again… to be a student, an apprentice, you know, to check things out a bit, to do things, to make things, and that decision was really difficult because… you know, there's a whole bunch of people involved who also [need to] earn money.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: But that was nice. I then told the band, and they were all like: “Yeah, man. Let's make some music.” So, of course everyone was like: “Hey, there goes”—
Chris: Yes, but as far as I know you, you're sure to have a rough point somewhere, where you say by then that you want the next album to be finished.
Swiss: Nope.
Chris: No?
Swiss: Not this time. I just want to—look, I've spent the last 10 years, and even before that, before that there was nothing… it was rap, I've been making, doing, releasing and so on and so forth for as long as I can remember, and now I'm at this point… bro, I just want to—
Chris: Play golf. *laughs*
Swiss: Yes, I'm a privateer, I just want to experience the life of a privateer! No. And I'm just totally up for it, I told the guys that, we talked about it, and I also said: *joking* “Of course I know that it's also a money grab, you all want to get your chalet in Switzerland after this tour.”
Chris: The second one, yes.
Swiss: The second one. Next to Helene Fischer’s (German Pop Star). I understand it, but… everyone was like: “Yeah man, that's a good decision.”
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: And everyone felt that, and I felt like… Do you know decisions like that, which are actually really hard and not just good, once you've made them, and a burden falls off you?
Chris: Yes.
Swiss: Bro, such a backpack fell off me. And I was so… “wow, awesome.”
Chris: I actually have something similar in mind, but it will take a while, because… now we're making an album that's coming out next summer, it's still [a while] away, it has to be finished in January-February, we're in the songwriting stage now, and then it's actually four more years until “20 years of Lord of the Lost.”
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: So, that would be 2029, and I have… this is going to be hard for everyone out there, but I've actually said that if it comes out in mid-2025—if it's finished by then, maybe it'll come out later—then I don't actually want to release another album until the 20-year anniversary.
Swiss: Yes?
Chris: But I also really want to take a break from live performances for one to one-and-a-half years.
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: From mid-2026 on, and in that time fulfil my own dream of bringing back a piece of the hobby. I always had the dream of recording drums via Dave Grohl's mixing console.
Swiss: Okay.
Chris: The old mixing console from Sound City Studios, where Nirvana recorded “Nevermind” and… from the Sound City Studios in Seattle, which is now in Dave Grohl's studio. I want to record piano at Abbey Road. I'd like to record guitars in L.A., I'd like to record vocals in—
Swiss: Does that mean, you’re renting a studio from them?
Chris: Exactly.
Swiss: Okay.
Chris: Exactly. I would like to record vocals where Roxette used to produce. That means taking a few years to make an album.
Swiss: And that’s what I mean, bro, that’s what we—
Chris: And traveling! Together as a band, not because of the tour, but because we say: “we're going to L.A. for two weeks to record guitars and go on vacation.”
Swiss: And I also realized that I… that now is the year where I have to be careful not to get lost in the treadmill.
Chris: Yes.
Swiss: You know, in this… production and… who said that once…
Chris: And I also torture you so hard in the studio every time we produce, so I understand.
Swiss: Yeah, that… It's really hard when you're always strapping these things on and think it's part of the job and—
Chris: Swiss has actually just said to me—perhaps for everyone out there—in a roundabout way: “Chris, we have to… I just want to…” He tells me he doesn't want to make an album for a while, when he has actually had an appointment with Dieter Bohlen (German producer) for a long time already—
Swiss: There’s an album coming out.
Chris: —with another… with five more producers, a sick team and a young start-up in Berlin.
Swiss: Yes. Yes, well. So, now you know it.
Chris: Yeah, okay. Shit.
Swiss: The record will be released in November. With a Starwatch (German Artist Management Company) Campaign. You see, I just realized this year that the most important thing for me is, I want to keep the fun that I always have and that I've always had, and that… and I now want to… it's also a nice situation, you know, even if you say four years… bro, we're also kind of at a point—
Chris: Well, maybe it's different, maybe during this time you think to yourself: “Nah, fuck, I want to release an album NOW!”
Swiss: Yes, but you've reached the point, and that's a nice point, that you don't HAVE to.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: So, you're not somehow dependent on the next tour fee or something, but you can appreciate what you have in music, and for me that's still the moment when I was a 15–16-year-old boy sitting stoned in my kitchen in the Schanze (city district in Hamburg) and writing songs to some American beats, you know? That was the greatest feeling ever and I don't want to lose that. That's why I'm very happy with my decision now.
Chris: It's not just about the fact that you've somehow luckily earned money with your music, but that you've also grown together with fans over so many years that there are people there who might actually be waiting a little bit for your music.
Swiss: 100%.
Chris: If you're a newcomer, nobody is waiting for you.
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: If you don't keep doing and doing and doing, and don't release something, people will forget about you. Once you've managed to make an impression—that sounds so arrogant now, “to make an emotional impression,” then there will also be loyal people waiting and looking forward to your music.
Swiss: Yes, and I—
Chris: And I think that's something very important, that you don't have yet as a young, brand-new artist. That is the greatest asset.
Swiss: No, and I think there's also… you know, so much has been put out in the last few years, in my opinion there's such a large catalogue of music that many people haven't completely discovered for themselves yet, where I think there are still some real gems hidden, where I have the feeling: “hey, this song, it's so much better than that song.”
Chris: Exactly this happened to me the other day—I was in the car with Mika the other day, we were listening to Swiss und die Andern albums again, he was like: “Let's listen to Swiss,” I was like: “Okay.” And then came “Wenn der Nagel den Sarg trifft” (“When the Nail Hits the Coffin”).
Swiss: Bro, what a song…!
Chris: That’s one of the best songs you have ever written.
Swiss: What a song!
Chris: Bro, that moved me so much, and I thought, “I want to hear this one live at some point!”
Swiss: And it really is—
Chris: But you sometimes simply forget about it, the song is on an album, the album is released, you don’t listen to your own albums every day.
Swiss: Yes. Every other day.
Chris: Exactly. and I also have… during a production, that's basically all I am listening to, and then I forget about it, and when Mika said: “Let's listen to this,” I thought: “Wow, there are a few things…”
Swiss: That's exactly what I mean, and that's… somehow, I have the feeling that the work we have done can now be left to the people with a clear conscience, you know?
Chris: Yes.
Swiss: Without putting myself under pressure. And I'm also keen to get up to mischief. I mean, you've probably seen that I've got—
Chris: “Inselverbot” (“Island ban”)?
Swiss: I have to tell you this story.
Chris: Me as a “perceived Sylt inhabitant,” because I spent every vacation there, I think I'll make my own version of it.
Swiss: You actually have to. Above all, you can make great songs out of it, you're banned from Insta, about the people, who—
Chris: But where does that come from, it says bootleg island ban?
Swiss: Listen, I tell you the story.
Chris: I mean, maybe some people out there don't even know what it's all about yet.
Swiss: Exactly. So, a week ago I was sitting at home with my whole gang and on “Blöd” (German Magazine, actually called “Bild” = “picture/image”, but often gets nicknamed “Blöd” = “stupid.” In this case he’s talking about their TV channel) I don't know which program it was on, there was a Schlager (German pop) format. Ballermannhits (songs enjoyed by German party people in Mallorca), some of the most terrible, the worst songs, and we were making fun of it, wonderful, it was just very entertaining, and suddenly Tim Toupet (German party hit singer) comes on with “Inselverbot” (“Island ban”).
Chris: Oh, it’s from him!
Swiss: And Tim Toupet is—his best-running song, it's from 2018—the song is also so fascinating, because at the beginning it goes: “You were already so drunk on board in the plane, you must never fly with RyanAir again, you're”—
Chris: Oh, it’s about Malle (short for “Mallorca”), right?
Swiss: Exactly. “Topless, you walk”— This song is actually totally… “Topless you walk through the club, what do you think, what kind of woman finds that cool?” or something.
Chris: But they do suck, those Malle tourists who get drunk at the airport.
Swiss: But I just want to say that it is a very atypical pop song in that context.
Chris: Yes, okay.
Swiss: The hook is simply: *sings* “You'll be kicked out, da-da-da-da-da-da.”
Chris: I heard it and thought, this is created with AI and just—
Swiss: It isn’t. What a hit! And then for three or four days—and I'm not just talking, this song ran in a continuous loop in the car and at home. And then this Sylt scandal happened[1] about which we can also talk why this is actually a scandal.
Chris: Yes, that is—
Swiss: Just because… that's… I also talked to Martin about it, he said: “Well, to jump on a topic like that now, that's a bit cheap,” and I said: “No, it's not cheap, because this topic, that's something else,” but we can talk about that in a moment, we still have all the past [missing word] from our grandfathers.
Chris: That's an excellent transition, from neo-Nazis to Nazis.
Swiss: From neo-Nazis to pop-Nazis to whatever. And then I thought… and then I was sitting in the car last Friday, taking Hermine (Swiss' dog) for a walk in Volkspark, listening to the song, and I thought: “Bro, this island ban thing is… that's exactly the song that fits right now!”
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: And then I, I texted you: “Hey, I have to go to the studio, I want to write something on it,” you were busy, Benny was busy and Bengt—
Chris: Bengt had time.
Swiss: A cool guy!
Chris: He’s a musician, he has time.
Swiss: I said to Bengt: “Can we already do it on Sunday?” He was like: “Come in the evening”. Then I wrote it in the morning—
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: —recorded and released it in the evening and I must say—
Chris: How does the verse go again? “You put on Gigi—”?
Swiss: “And when the DJ plays Gigi, you chant Nazi slogans.”
Chris: “DJ [plays] Gigi”—I found that cool.
Swiss: Exactly. And I just want to—what I'm basically saying is—I also want to have fun, be silly, you know? So, I enjoy doing things like that.
Chris: We also have another song “in the pipeline.”
Swiss: Exactly.
Chris: A solo song.
Swiss: “Hello Depression,” right.
Chris: Swiss and Harms. That would be the first Swiss and Harms Song.
Swiss: Oh yeah, bro. A collab-album.
Chris: Yeah.
Swiss: Yeah, I find that cool, you know, that’s what I mean. I just feel like, if I want to have fun, I’m having fun, if I don't want to do anything but go hiking somewhere in the mountains, then I'll go hiking somewhere in the mountains, if I—I don't know, you know—if I just want to do podcasts with you, I'll just do podcasts with you. I just realize that now is the time when I can relax a bit, lean back a bit, pursue life a bit. I'm currently reading Murakami's “Killing Commendatore.”
Chris: I don’t know that one.
Swiss: It's about a painter who has separated from his wife and is in a lonely hut in the mountains. And he actually has to paint, he used to paint portraits for people, which was also quite lucrative in terms of money. But he doesn't feel like it anymore, he doesn't do it anymore and he's alone a lot and doesn't know what to paint. And he reads a bit, then he always cooks a lot for himself.
Chris: That's still on the cards for me, to be really alone.
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: I would like to spend four to six weeks in a Finnish forest hut. Maybe not necessarily in winter, that's not my thing, but where you can look after yourself. And to have this experience of being alone, even without media.
Swiss: Yes, it's easy… I think the last few years, and that's also the case when you're on the road a lot and have always done a lot; you also tend to numb things like that inside you…
Chris: And child. All the strength and all the love. Everything you have. No matter how bad you feel, you always put everything into this chapter of your life “child.” And that's how it has to be. And that sometimes wears you out more than you realize, because you always give everything to your child.
Swiss: And that's just, to wrap it up here, that's just the moment that I realized, and of course it hurts, because I love being on tour, because I love being on the road, because I love performing music in front of people, because I love being on the road with my band, you know? They're not my music colleagues or anything, they're my friends, you know? That's family.
Chris: It's the same with us.
Swiss: And that's why I have a teary eye, but somehow it was also “Boah, Digga” for me.
Chris: Yes, but look, just to wrap this up briefly, I just realized again today, here on the way to the “Lost Place” as we call it, where we record here; my son turned 13 today.
Swiss: Oh, Diggi, all the best!
Chris: Teenager, now.
Swiss: Awesome.
Chris: Really cool. And I thought about it for a moment and thought: “Hey, when he was born, it was just a few weeks before the next festival in 2011.” Lord of the Lost were just in their infancy, playing the first great festivals. And I thought: “Dude, what happened in those 13 years?” What the fuck. And suddenly I have a teenager at home.
Swiss: Hey, I can already see that with my daughter.
Chris: She's 4 now, right?
Swiss: Yeah. “Dad, put your shoes away.” You know? So, and life… I think you always have to be careful and that's one thing I've always said to myself, and I've always said to the boys: “It's very, very important to keep a distance between the private person you are and the artificial figure you're portraying somewhere.” And if you start to be just that, just the musician and that's all that makes up my life, then at some point, if that doesn't work out or if you can't do that anymore, you're shaken to the core. And I just want to live a little bit at the moment.
Chris: To be Werner.
Swiss: Just be Werner for once.
Chris: But watch out, we're just going to get to the topic, maybe for those who haven't noticed, we're going to go from neo-Nazis to real Nazis. That will be the topic later. We have the topic “My grandfather was a Nazi,” where I really had to write things down to reflect on a few things. But first, very briefly, a week or so ago on Sylt, in the “Pony” club, which is one of the first nightclubs in Germany, where my parents used to party in the ‘60s. It's in Kampen, the side of Sylt that's just snobbish. In case you haven't seen it—you can find it everywhere—they shouted Nazi slogans to Gigi D'Agostino's hit “L'Amour Toujours”, which I don't want to reproduce like that. And they made a video of it and put it online, where you can really recognize all the people. Two of them were fired, by the way—
Swiss: *sarcastically* Very clever, too—
Chris: Super clever. And well, the conspirators say that Die Ampel (“The Traffic lights”, referring to the colors of the parties in the actual German government) constructed the video.
Swiss: The traffic lights, of course. Of course, Diggah.
Chris: Exactly and that's natural—
Swiss: The traffic lights in particular can't get anything done, but that—
Chris: They can do it.
Swiss: —they can do it. So, themselves… They're just being put down.
Chris: So, I also shared this video and wrote underneath it: “My dear party guests, in case you don't know, but Gigi D'Agostino, whose song you're shouting these Nazi slogans to right now, is also a foreigner.” So that was the story and of course it's a scandal, that would be… Honestly, I have to say, for me it's no less of a scandal than if it happened in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (city in Bavaria) or Castrop-Rauxel (city in North Rhine-Westphalia) or anywhere else at the bar. Such Nazi slogans are always shouted. But of course, if it's a popular place, like the island of Sylt, Kampen, an important club, it makes a bigger wave. Because in Dresden, nobody is that surprised about Nazi slogans at the bar in some beer pub.
Swiss: But that's what I meant to Martin, that's the spectacular thing about this video: It's not just some village bums from the big disco in Saxony-Anhalt, where you think: “Ah, my God, some Neanderthals,” but it feels like it's the young people who later sit on the executive floors of the companies whose representatives fly to other countries with the Federal Chancellor. You get the feeling that, even if it's probably not the case for everyone, it's happening in the circles of the old money aristocracy, who somehow have a say in Germany. And what I find so crass—
Chris: But only very briefly, the real Sylt residents, the islanders, how insulting it is for them too. The real islanders, most of whom are hard-working people for the tourism industry or simply an incredible number of artists and hippies and surfers; do you think there was a Sylt native among them?
Swiss: That's just blatant, do you know the book by Wolfgang Schorlau “Die schützende Hand”?
Chris: Nope.
Swiss: I'll have to shoot that into the story too. It's a fictional book, in quotation marks, but it's also very well researched. He spent ages researching it. It's about the NSU murders[2] and that it's actually quite clear that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been holding its hand over these… That it was actually a test balloon, these Uwes who committed these attacks. That it was a test balloon for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to see what could be done. And that's why it's so funny when the AfD says that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is too left-wing and all that. “Hey bro, you know, Maaßen[3] was head of the domestic intelligence agency. You can worry about a lot of things, they could worry about a lot of things, but don't worry about the Verfassungsschutz (Protection of the Constitution) being too left-wing.”
Chris: Oh, Maaßen wasn't too left-wing?
Swiss: *Ironically* No, although he is very left-wing.
Chris: Very dodgy (he's making a play on words here; "links"="left"; "link"= "dodgy") in any case.
Swiss: In any case, he also shows why right-wing ideas are structurally so strong in Germany. Of course, it's because, look, you understand it to a certain extent. The war was over, and you have to somehow start administering Germany. Who do you let do that? The people who did it before, of course.
Chris: The ones who have a plan.
Swiss: And for example, the first secret service in Germany was, I think, the Gehlen Service[4]. Gehlen was an old Nazi. So, he was an old Nazi and that's how it developed. It's exactly the same with the economy.
Chris: Well, you had two generations who simply grew up with the ideology for a long time, even before the war. From the Hitler Youth onwards. You don't get that out so quickly.
Swiss: Exactly, and that's why you have to say that at all structural levels, whether it's secret service or economic, you simply have this mindset in the structures. From the people. And of course, this kind of thing is inherited and passed on.
Chris: Maybe not genetically inherited, but I know what you mean.
Swiss: No, but ideas are also inherited, I don't mean in the genetic sense, but in the sense of you naturally carry it with you over the generations. So, if your boss, who you somehow adore, sets an example all the time of how to deal with this and that group of people, then of course you also think: “These fucking leftists…” And especially, as you have to say with regard to the left, it wasn't just Nazi ideas, but the biggest enemy even for the Americans, was communism. And communism and being left-wing were the same side for the Americans, but of course also for the Westerners here.
Chris: That is still the case by the way. I spoke to a Yank the other day and we talked about it; about the left, not about left-wing ideology, but about what it means to be against the right. And then he said: “Ok, are you all communists then?” I was like: “Nah…”
Swiss: Nah, maybe it's not so cool after all—
Chris: And then I tried to explain to him that just because I'm against Nazis doesn't mean I'm a classic original communist.
Swiss: We're in an art commune after all, Diggah.
Chris: That's just by the way, yes. So—
Swiss: And I think we can make a cool transition now. In terms of inheritance and all that. For example, I'm sitting here right now in front of an unpacked box from my grandfather's Order of Merit…
Chris: Wow, that's fucked up…
Swiss: Well, these are all swastika-spiked medals and awards.
Chris: Just a quick, stupid question: Is it actually allowed to have something like that? Isn't there some kind of [law]… for Nazi devotional objects, or is that really only if you sell it?
Swiss: I don't know. It's not as if they're worn at family celebrations.
Chris: Yes, of course not, but you know what I mean. They just don't exist like that.
Swiss: Maybe. My mother is always thinking about it. To a certain extent, it's with shame that she always keeps these things in the farthest corner, I don't know where.
Chris: *Reads* “Faithful service in the Wehrmacht.”
Swiss: Yes, and briefly, I told my mother yesterday that we just wanted to talk about it and then—
Chris: Me too.
Swiss: —my mother is currently writing her biography. And then she sent me some things—
Chris: Wow, dude… disgusting…
Swiss: Crazy, isn't it? Let's compare what medals you have. They were stable…
Chris: None at all. *Reads* “Fighter squadron…”
Swiss: And listen to this. My grandpa was a fighter pilot in the Galland squadron[5]. I don't know what these two chalices are. Feels like that dying cup (note: he means “Hemlock cup”) when you have to kill yourself because you've been caught on enemy lines. So very briefly, my grandfather was a fighter pilot in the Galland squadron, my grandfather was shot down several times.
Chris: Your grandpa on your mother's side.
Swiss: On my mother's side. My great-grandfather on my mother's side fought in the Battle of Skagerrak[6] and his hair turned white overnight. During the war my other great-grandfather on my father's side was a block captain. When my grandma and grandpa got married, the Galland flying squadron—
Chris: Block warden in a concentration camp or what?
Swiss: I don't know. When they got married over the village square, the squadron went over and dropped toilet rolls so that it looked like garlands hanging everywhere.
Chris: Wow, that's crazy.
Swiss: And my mother… After the war, my grandpa made his way from Orange in France by bike.
Chris: “From Orange,” what does that mean?
Swiss: That's the name of the area.
Chris: I see. I thought that was—
Swiss: In France, behind the lines, he fought his way through, didn't get captured and—and that was a big problem for my mother, because she naturally looked up to her father a lot—after the war he was really… he cut his father off, he hanged himself after the war because the shame of having lost—the Nazis were like that—was too much. That means my grandfather on my mother's side cut his own father off the rope in the attic. And after the war it was so boring. So, they were bored with life, tried different things and my mother showed me photos of how my grandpa—
Chris: Do you have photos of him?
Swiss: No, unfortunately not.
Chris: I only have photos with me.
Swiss: How my grandpa and grandma met Galland, the boss of this flying squadron, later, sometime in the 50s, at an air show.
Chris: Oh.
Swiss: There's laughter, my grandma was also super hyped.
Chris: So much for “denazification.”
Swiss: People laugh, people are hyped, people talk about the “good old days” when they fought. Now everything is somehow so boring and then you realize something… and so did my grandma, right to the end. And that was a huge issue with my mother too. And that just shows again how absurd our lives are. So, you know, I grew up here in Hamburg St. Pauli and in the Schanze. You also grew up in Hamburg and are here now and that's a past that we still have to live with.
Chris: Now that we've told our stories, I'd like to talk about how to deal with such a past. Before we get into that, I want to talk about my—let's forget for a moment that we have a Nazi background here! Because the story of my grandma and grandpa, who I never met, is so crazy… My grandma Lilo, who died 6 years ago—hey, that noise when you're—
*Both laugh a lot*
Swiss: —when I pack away my Nazi memorabilia
Chris: This is so fucked up!
Swiss: I put two of them back on.
Chris: It looks really nice! But you put the [swastika] armband on the wrong arm!
Swiss: That’s the style! That’s punk! You know!?
Chris: Prince Harry!
Swiss: I'll come over now and look at photos.
Chris: No! Wait, I'll give you… Listen… No, let me tell you the story first, sorry! My grandma Lilo, she died 6 years ago, at the age of 98, she was born in 1920. And in 1940—
Swiss: She is from your mother's side?
Chris: Yes, from my mother. In the first or second year of the war… Uhm… In the second year of the war, 1940, she had her first child. My uncle Klaus, who is also dead now. And she told me a few days, a few weeks before her death—she never told anyone this, neither Klaus, nor my mother, nor anyone else! She told me a story and she said to me, “Christian, I've never talked about it, but we have to talk about it! We have to tell these stories!” My uncle Klaus was… She didn't use the word rape, but she said, “I didn't want to get pregnant! It was made by a soldier.” And she didn't say whether it was by a German soldier or someone else, it doesn't matter at all! In any case, my uncle Klaus was the child of a rape.
Swiss: Crazy… *he said in in a sad way*
Chris: And then a short time later, when Klaus was a baby, she met my grandfather, my mother's father, Gerhard Harms. He was born in 1919 and has a crazy side story: He was confirmed in the church and married my grandmother in the church where we also shot a music video: the Kreuzkirche in Wandsbek.
Swiss: Awesome!
Chris: It's right next to the retirement homes, where my grandma later died. In the retirement homes, where I later did my community service. So totally like that… Whatever! Side story!
(In Germany, for many years, you could choose whether to join the German army for 9 months or to do social work like working in elderly care or in a hospital). She met him and Gerhard was—that was in the third year of the war in 1941—he was 22 years old. Super young! And he took her, which was an absolute shame at that time because of the small child. And he loved them! He was not a hunter; he was a reconnaissance [aircraft] soldier. So, for those who don't know, reconnaissance soldiers are not the ones who drop the bombs, but the ones who fly around beforehand and look for good places to drop the bombs. He was then shot down on May 13, 1943, probably that day, over Krasnodar in the Soviet Union. I have something here and it's… This is so difficult for me… I've never been able to read this whole letter. I have copies of letters he sent home, and this was four days before he died.
Swiss: So, he died?
Chris: Yes…
Swiss: Ah, shot down, right…
Chris: He was shot down, yes. My mother was born three months later in August. That means she never got to know him. He died at 24. Here's a picture of him. This is my grandma back then and this is him.
Swiss: Wow! What kind of faces, right?
Chris: Yeah, and look here on the right, there he is. It looks like a… I don't even know if you should or are allowed to post pictures like that… It looks like something from a Hollywood movie.
Swiss: These faces…
Chris: That was at their wedding—
Swiss: He’s 23 there!
Chris: Yes, he looks like Humphrey Bogart or something like that. On the wedding photo he’s wearing a Nazi uniform and here he is with Klaus. Who wasn't his child, but who he considered his child… I have, I would like to talk about this in a moment, I have this photo with his aviator goggles hanging at home! Well, actually I have a Nazi photo hanging at home! But what I really want to say is that I find this letter so shocking. Because he writes… Well, there always remains… Even though I never met him… I am mourning the loss of a person I never met! It is from May 9th, 1943, four days before his death: “My dear Mum, I have just discovered on the calendar that May 16th is Mother's Day and as one of our planes is flying home tomorrow morning, I hope that these lines will reach you by then.” So, it seems that he didn't fly home. He was one day before “I'm flying home” and then had to stay after all, was on a mission and was shot down. To briefly finish the emotional stories before we get to the topic “How do I deal with this?”, my grandfather on my father's side, Karl Krogmann—By the way, I still have several Adolf Krogmanns in the family—and my great-great-great-uncle is August Krogmann (Hermann August Krogmann was a German merchant and politician).
Swiss: What? Dude!
Chris: Yeah, August-Krogmann-Street, an island was even named after him! Krogman Island in… not North Pole, South Pole… What is the name of the…
Swiss: South Pole, Antarctica!
Chris: Antarctic, right! Fuck, I just had the word Antarctica… I'm so emotional right now! My paternal grandfather, Karl Krogmann, I think he was a normal soldier, was a Soviet prisoner of war and came back home. My father was born in 1940, so he was eight or nine years old then, around the end of the 1940s. The story that my father can't tell without starting to cry, and it's really difficult for me to recount: He came home and that was after the war. They lived in a 50 square meter apartment with four children! He came home and then dinner was made. There was no meat, there were just potatoes. His wife, my paternal grandmother, then said “I'm sorry, today we're only having potatoes, that's all we have.” And then he ate the potatoes and started to cry, while sitting at the table. She asked what was wrong, if it didn't taste good. But he said: “No, the potatoes taste like marzipan!”
Swiss: Awesome!
Chris: Because he only ate shit while being a prisoner of the war. What I'm getting at is: we're talking about things that bring tears to my eyes. Where I'm grieving over people I never met. Simply because I'm so upset by the grief it caused with my grandmother. With my mother, who never met her father. Me, who never had a grandfather. But they were Nazis too! And I'm wondering how I'm going to deal with it. Because… and I have this picture hanging at home and I don't know what's right and what's wrong! Should I cancel my family? It wasn't inherited! That doesn't make me a Nazi! Just because my grandfather grew up like that and was influenced by the Hitler Youth… How do you deal with it?
Swiss: I think… there is something that you often read in discussions on the Internet from these people who say: “I am a proud German, why should I bear this eternal guilt?” In my opinion, it is not about an inherited guilt, but rather about a responsibility.
Chris: For the future!
Swiss: It's about a responsibility that you bear. A really stupid example: we're both part of a large family and I kill you because of something. Then my children aren't somehow to blame for me doing it. But I think that my children have a responsibility later on to support your wife and your daughters. Do you know what I mean? Well, I think that somehow it does become a responsibility if you deal with it correctly, to say that something has been ruined in one strand of my family. I'm prepared to continue down this strand, but in a different way! I'm not cutting it up between us, but I'm trying to take on some of the responsibility for it or to pass on some of the responsibility. That's also the discussion that's going on with Israel right now, where people say “Why do we have anything to do with it? I didn't send all the Jews to concentration camps, etc.” And I just think that despite all that, we have a responsibility. *Chris always agrees* Of course, the world is totally complex there too. This Israel and Palestine issue in particular is really maddening. For example, I have often been asked “Yes, say something! The Israeli occupying power…” and so on. I am not the kind of person who knows the whole story of the development, so to speak.
Chris: There are 2,000 years of history…
Swiss: I can definitely say that I think it's bad! I think it's bad that the government around Netanyahu (Prime Minister of Israel) is a complete disaster! I think these hardline settlers in the West Bank who harass the Palestinians are terrible! I think that this war has gone too far, but despite all of that we have to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization! And Hamas could just as well be told to “Hey, stop building your hiding places under schools and hospitals! If you really care about the Palestinian people, then put down your weapons!” You know? This topic is so complex and of course I have to say at the end of the day, no matter how bad this government under Netanyahu is, in the end, Israel is a democracy! 10,000 people can go out on the streets and demonstrate against the government! In Gaza you will be murdered for taking to the streets against Hamas! And that's what people have to do… I always have to laugh: Queers for Palestine—Bro, are you serious? Someone wrote that recently. It's obviously completely exaggerated, but it's a bit like “Jews for the Holocaust.”
Chris: There was also a big outcry during the ESC because Israel was not disqualified, but Russia was a few years ago.
Swiss: The reason I made this little digression is that I think… I am fundamentally German, when I see myself as German, I see a connection to Israel. And I see an emotional connection to Israel and to the right to exist.
Chris: It's not your fault, but we live in a country that has a lot of guilt and we have a responsibility to clarify things so that something like this doesn't happen again. *Swiss agrees*
Swiss: I have to say, that's how I approach it and despite everything, I feel incredibly sorry for these civilians who are dying right now. These poor chi… These pictures…
Chris: That's… very briefly, while we're on this digression, I get asked this a lot, I'm always asked to say something about it. And then I try to think about it and then I say, I see so much unbelievable shit happening on both sides and when I read into it, I realize that theoretically I have to go back 2,000 years. The Middle East conflict in Israel hasn't only existed since the founding of the State of Israel! What I mean by that is, I can't accumulate enough knowledge to say I can give you an opinion on it. I can say that my heart beats for all the innocent children who die on both sides.
Swiss: And of course I am in favor of a two-state solution, I hope that Hamas will not rule Palestine, whatever it looks like! And I hope that Israel will not be shot at again as soon as the time comes—
Chris: But if Hamas is in power, there will never be a solution.
Swiss: But I hope that we can establish a more or less democratic system. People always forget how many Palestinians live in Israel. *Chris agrees* Well, I think I see around 30% or so, feel free to correct me, so a large proportion of the people who live here are also Palestinians. Um, there's a nice saying that I read once and it's true: at a certain point, it doesn't matter who is initiating the violence, it just has to stop! *Chris agrees*
Chris: This is the case even with a small personal dispute.
Swiss: I'm so simple, it has to stop! It just has to stop NOW! And I think that has to be the focus on both sides and on all sides. You have to start giving forgiveness a chance on both sides. It's very funny when privileged white kids all over the world talk hysterically about how this conflict should go and so on. *Chris agrees, laughing desperately* And some Macklemores (American rapper) make songs where you think: “Hey, you…” well, whatever. Long story short: I think that I do have a feeling of responsibility for Jewish life somehow. On the same hand—
Chris: But you don’t feel guilty? That you—
Swiss: NO!
Chris: Yes, but that's what I always say. I'm often asked, especially by some American bands, whether I feel guilty in any way and I say exactly that, in obviously less clever words.
Swiss: Yeah, somehow it’s difficult.
Chris: I can't express myself as well as you.
Swiss: How I elaborated… No, but that you want to remember your grandfather and it's just like that, most of the photos from that time… it was an absolutely over-politicized time! Fascism thrives on that.
Chris: The wedding photo, I would not hang that up, because there he is wearing a uniform with a swastika there.
Swiss: I would hang that up if you were to give it to me.
Chris: Yes of course, next to your Nazi devotionals at home.
Swiss: Next to my devotionals! No, and that's why I believe that it's something you have to work with, you know? So, it's not—I find it difficult to say: “look, my hero grandpa”—
Chris: No, of course not!
Swiss: —“How he fought, they were still real men back then” and “one didn't know anything,” I think one definitely has to view it very critically, um—
Chris: I'm wondering, very quickly, what would have happened with me, what would have happened with you if we had grown up like that? He’s born in 1919, takeover by Hitler 1933, so that means start of the Hitler Youth was, I believe, sometime shortly after that, where he was in too, of course. What would have—would you and I, would we have stood up there as teenagers and, and would we have caught that?
Swiss: Bro, you would—
Chris: The brainwashing? Or would we have participated and would have become the same without knowing it?
Swiss: You have to imagine, 1919, one year after the First World War.
Chris: Yes.
Swiss: Period.
Chris: Yes. Yes.
Swiss: Germany has the absolute—
Chris: Also, a post-war country already back then—
Swiss: —Yes. Germany has the absolute feeling of having been hornswoggled during the negotiations afterwards, has the feeling of being diminished, and it's already an “everyone was against us, and we got gutted” anyway “everything got taken from us and so on and so forth,” and then a dude comes up—
Chris: Also, very unstable government in the Weimar Republic.
Swiss: —and then the guy comes up who gives you the feeling from your Revanchist thought from these inferiority complexes, umm…
Chris: Strength, pride…
Swiss: And it’s crazy, my cousin—I have a very, very intelligent cousin who studied in Harvard, he is living in Switzerland now too, he said what Hitler did was actually the stupidest action ever, he said Germany was the most extremely growing, most economic country, we were the measure of all things, movie-wise. So, the German movies were— Hollywood was not on the level of German movies, as far as I know.
Chris: Yes, it was just at the end of this silent movie era, things were just about to take off.
Swiss: Hey, German culture, Berlin, everyone wanted to go to Berlin was—the scene, the literature, Germany, the economy, everything was thriving! He just would have had to let time work, and you would have had, as they are doing it now, assimilated everything through economic power one way or the other. But to go this step was so highly emotionalized, out of inferiority complexes—
Chris: Which step? You mean the step of an offensive war or… or?
Swiss: Well, to attack everything and to want to live these greater German fantasies and—
Chris: Germania, yes, yes.
Swiss: —and the Aryan and so on and so forth and… I won't presume to say: “I would have been the stable anti-fascist there,” but maybe it would have gotten me as well. And I think that many people [are thinking] like this there!
Chris: But I think if you are growing up like that as a child or as a teenager, just like we grew up, we have learned what's good, what's bad, we have been taught values, if you for your whole life—if we would have been taught these values, would we have fallen for it, as well? That's what I'm asking myself. I don't know.
Swiss: Shoulda coulda woulda. At the end of the day, it's difficult to look down on these people like that. On the other hand, I have to say that I do believe that an empathic person will recognize injustice and if I would have seen Jewish stores getting marked and pillaged… I don't know. I believe there I would have…
Chris: Yes, exactly, that is already a few years later, I'm talking about the initial period. Exactly, I'm talking about the initial period. I'm not talking about the time where it was clear at some point in which direction—
Swiss: Exactly! But that has been—
Chris: —the winds are blowing.
Swiss: —I believe, the moment of escape for many who said: “wait a moment, I don't want this. This is not what I imagined.” And I believe if you did not manage to back out of it there, then at some point there is so much actual collective guilt added to it. When the regime that you've pushed for so long makes you a henchman for these things, and sometimes if you've gone too far it's difficult, without completely falling apart yourself and in your own perception, sometimes it's difficult to back out of it, and you justify it. You know it from your music, you know that it's not good.
Chris: Yes, I know.
Swiss: But you are still doing it again and again, Christian! *Laughs*
Chris: And I have to justify it! *Laughs*
Swiss: There is no going back anymore!
Chris: I have to justify it to myself.
Swiss: Yes, but you don't want that, that’s why you’re sugarcoating it!
Chris: No, the interesting thing is—so, I have lots and lots of these letters from the front line, and at the start there were also short missions, and then they came home, so I'm talking about Gerhard Harms again, my grandfather on my mother's side, the pilot. And at the start, the first letters were still like, it was still about the glorious victory and for Germany and so on, and in the last letters the message was only that he hopes that this horrible war will come to an end soon, and… they got controlled, the letters. That means that things like that still got through…
Swiss: Mmm.
Chris: …and you notice there has been a change. How far it went, if there was actually remorse at play, or if the heart was still burning for the Führer, I don't know. But you noticed that, as far as one was allowed to express oneself, in these censored letters, that's something that already happened there. In these years of war.
Swiss: And you can’t forget—
Chris: With that, sorry, I don't want to justify anything with it—
Swiss: Noo.
Chris: —but I just want to say it's interesting to see that, if you analyze these letters, that there's a change happening.
Swiss: It is also… People are always talking about the war as if it were just like “yeah, then you just have to blah blah blah.” The war is so horrible, right, all these things, like the rape of German women after the Red Army came and so on and so forth. You also can't forget, people came who have also fought for an eternity, whose own wives had gotten raped by the Wehrmacht, the family annihilated; things like these that you experience, they make you ugly.
Chris: Yes.
Swiss: They corrupt your soul forever and you can't expect, you know… that is just like if you have ex child pirates or child soldiers from Somalia that come here, man, they've seen their parents getting raped and sliced open in front of them, what are you THINKING? Without justifying anyone going crazy and so on and so forth but, I just want to say, all these things that are happening don't come out of nowhere.
Chris: No.
Swiss: If you treat a human being like an animal and if you let a human being see and experience certain things that dehumanize them, how can you expect them to be human? Or to behave like a human?
Chris: I can try to scale things up like that myself. I am—I've already told you the grenade story, we still don't talk about a war situation there, but I know how that feels if a thing like that explodes, and parts are flying through your body.
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: And we are talking about me standing in the disco there.
Swiss: Yes.
Chris: That means that is a bad experience, a traumatic experience, but that is not comparable to a war situation. But that was already SO bad for me, that it almost broke me psychologically.
Swiss: Of course!
Chris: And if I were to scale that up to fates like what you were just talking about… How did we even end up at that topic? Crazy.
Swiss: We ended up there through whether you should glorify your grandpa—
Chris: Ah, okay.
Swiss: —so to speak, that he was a soldier, and there we said if we would have also been—
Chris: Yep.
Swiss: — soldiers and that—
Chris: Sorry, I'm just—it starts me up so far emotionally that—
Swiss: I noticed that!
Chris: —that I’m actually losing the thread sometimes, because I’m really swaying between these stories that I'm hearing from my mother, from my grandmother, from my father, and that it's my family, come on, but I'm actually having a hard time with it, I've also never really talked about it, this topic, “my grandpa was a nazi back then,” because I'm having such a hard time sometimes, to really—I can't talk about love there, since I've never got to know him, but it is still my heritage, and partially I'm thinking “wow, do I actually have to be embarrassed?” But I actually don't want that, because it's not my fault.
Swiss: What’s important is the… I think the development. Another example now: yesterday there was this—there is this millennial punk—
Chris: Sorry, I just have the feeling—
Swiss: How long are we even—
Chris: Almost an hour.
Swiss: Okay.
Chris: Whatever, I'm just having the feeling that I'm almost using you as a psychologist today here.
Swiss: No!
Chris: It really is like that, because I've never talked about that with anyone.
Swiss: Look, the example that I want to tell you about now is much softer, but it is the same thing. And that concerns only my own development, right? You have already had a cross-generational development. So, in your childhood you were not the strapping Nazi anymore, because you have such a past in your family—
Chris: No!
Swiss: —and then slowly developed into this person, but you have already been socialized this way over the course of generations, also your parents, that you are the person that you are today; and for me yesterday there was—unfortunately I was not able to be at the premiere, in Düsseldorf for this millennial punk documentary, there are many… man, the Hosen (Die Toten Hosen, “The Dead Trousers,” a famous German punk band), all kinds of people are talking about punk there, And I was there with Diggen (a musician who is also part of Missglückte Welt)—
Chris: Is that—who is it from?
Swiss: It was released yesterday!
Chris: But who was it produced by?
Swiss: By the guys from Düsseldorf who are also hosting us! *Laughs* So greetings!
Chris: Ah, okay, I see.
Swiss: You have to watch it sometime—
Chris: But is it shown in the cinema or something?
Swiss: So far, it's in the ARD (German TV channel) media centre, and like every time, if it gets many clicks—
Chris: And it's called “Millennial Punk.”
Swiss: Millennial Punk.
Chris: Okay, interesting, okay.
Swiss: You can check it out, I can recommend it very much, and so to speak, it's about provocation there, and there are I was also asked why I'm saying things like back then, when I—
Chris: So, you can also be seen in the documentary?
Swiss: I can also be seen there. That I'm saying things like [in] songs where I am using the f-word. And yesterday when I watched it, I noticed again how much this word grosses me out. And…
Chris: The F-word?
Swiss: Yes, exactly. And—
Chris: We're talking about English?
Swiss: No, the word “Fotze”. (German for “cunt”).
Chris: Oh, F— ah! So, this is the F-word in German?
Swiss: Exactly.
Chris: Okay, sorry.
Swiss: And I realized how uncomfortable I find this word today. And I get asked: “why did you talk like that?” and then a song by me gets played, this really famous: “Halt Die Fresse In Der Schanze” (“Shut Up In The Schanze”) when I'm going through the Schanze (Sternschanze, a district in Hamburg) with a few friends and saying: “shut up you tourist F!” and repeating that a few times—
Chris: That’s from your hip hop time, right?
Swiss: Exactly! And that is being shown, and I was sitting there yesterday, and I thought like: “you wankers, why are you showing that?” Like, exactly like that, and then I said something very intelligent, like often in this documentary, and I said: “Look, I've been socialized like that. We did not give any thought [about it]. When we said, ‘that’s gay,’ we meant ‘that’s shit!’ We didn’t even—”
Chris: Yes, I know it the same way! Back then I've also said: “that's gay” and I didn't mean homosexuality with it, but—
Swiss: No! Because you weren't even aware of what you said there or what it was about!
Chris: Whom you might hurt with it, yes.
Swiss: Exactly. And I also said that in the documentary, and after all, it is important what kind of development you’re doing. 10 years or 15 years ago I talked like that. Today I find that disgusting, today I'm aware of how I'm hurting other people with it and whom I mean with that, and what kind of message that even has. And then I got [asked]: “do you regret having said that?” And I am like: “look, I wouldn't do that anymore today, but that is all a part of my development.” And I’d rather look at the person that I have become and say: “ey, it's good that I don't say that anymore today, and that I'm aware of what that means” and there is a sentence coming now for everyone to write down; wait, I’m quickly giving you a second… I think now everyone has a pen and paper.
Chris: Look, I have something here. *Rustling of paper*
Swiss: When people [are saying]: “well, Swiss, 15 years ago you said that word, you have to be canceled!” then the question arises, how do you expect society to develop to the positive, if you don’t even allow the individual to develop to the positive? How do you even want to stand up as an anti-fascist and to change society if you're saying: “every person who formerly said this and that and that, aren't allowed to make character turnarounds, because I don't believe them.”
Chris: That means you have to already be born faultless.
Swiss: Born faultless. And that is a really important point, that you have to grant every person and thus also every society the potential to develop, and also have to appreciate it and have to say: “[it is] good that you have changed and I am accompanying you on this change,” but if you are always screaming down everyone who did something wrong 10 years ago or five years ago or 15 years ago, and only judge them by their darkest and weakest and worst moments, then you will never get to a society in which it is not like that anymore.
Chris: True, instead of canceling, you have to say: “it was not good, but good that you are doing it differently today.”
Swiss: “That wasn't good, but good that you aren't like that anymore today.”
Chris: Yes
Swiss: Or “good that you have changed there.” And that's what I'm reproaching these people for. And I more or less said that in the documentary, that I said: “That was a part of me. That's how I was socialized, but look at the way that I've come, that's what I'm proud of. Look who I am today, and that's what it is about.”
Chris: But it's similar for me. So, if I’m reading through old texts or old interviews, partially, if it's about the church for example, about Catholicism and so on and I am choosing my words more wisely today, and I'm saying: “yeah I have a problem with institutionally-led religion, with operation blah blah blah blah blah,” 20 years ago I said: “I want to go lighting churches on fire!”
Swiss: Yes, yes.
Chris: I think that was somewhat unconsidered, and “every believer is shit!” I'm seeing that very, very differently today.
Swiss: Yes, of course.
Chris: I am rather looking behind it, you know, that is—I know it the same way! And if someone is digging out such old interviews, then I might also have to face a few things. *Addressing the audience* You could do that, look for old interviews of me! *Laughs*
Swiss: That would be, I believe, since we're nearing the end of the broadcast, a conclusion from my side, a wish for us all, maybe we'll manage to not evaluate and judge each other based on our weakest moments all the time anymore, but maybe according to our best moments.
Chris: Yes, or maybe on the development to that point.
Swiss: Exactly.
Chris: Which is even more important.
Swiss: And don't [missing word] the people, so to say—to take a moment of their darkest hour and say: “That's who you are. That's who you will always be,” but, exactly, based on—
Chris: What’s your opinion on me fading this incredibly happy power metal intro in under your last words as an outro again—
Swiss: I find that good.
Chris: —then it's getting a more emotional—okay, then choose your finishing words, and I am slowly fading the music in.
*Intro starts playing, fading in*
Swiss: People, don't judge your counterpart based on their weakest moments, but based on the strongest moments and on the beautiful development that they took.
Chris: Yes. Bye.
Swiss: Bye.
[1] In May 2024 young people were partying on the island Sylt. They were chanting xenophobic slogans to the Gigi d’Agostino hit “L’amour Toujours.”
[2] National Socialist Underground - Wikipedia
[3] Hans-Georg Maaßen - Wikipedia
[4] Gehlen Organization - Wikipedia
[6] Battle of Jutland - Wikipedia
Translation: Margit Güttersberger, Elisabeth Czermack, Jeany Fischer, Jari Witt
Proofreading: Helen Forsyth