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Episode 12 – Blind in the left eye?

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 this episode, Swiss and Chris consider the question of whether, as left-liberal thinkers, they are perhaps applying double standards? It is easy to denounce the anti-democratic, reactionary, racist and fascist ideas of German right-wing extremists and parties such as the AfD. But how do we deal with people who come to Germany from other countries and are essentially children of the same spirit? Do we avoid criticism here? Are we cowards or simply inconsistent? It's a big topic and we are far from having all the answers. But we should talk about it. Please have a decent discussion in the comments and don't forget to subscribe and recommend us everywhere!

 

*Intro playing, German traditional pop music style*

Chris: Grüezi (Swiss for “hello”) from the “Dilettantenstadl” (literally: “Amateur’s barn.” There used to be a music show in Germany with traditional German pop music, called “Musikantenstadl”/Musician’s barn, so Chris is joking about that here) with Swiss and Harms. Today we have—I think this has been the most atmospheric intro so far. I even clapped along on one and three.

Swiss: Yes, that’s cool. European Football Championships are just awesome, boozing—

Chris: I’ll turn down my mobile, right.

Swiss: —national flags are out, German music… it’s just cool!

Chris: It’s just really cool. I also have to say that whenever I hear music like this, I always feel the need to swing.

Swiss: Right. To simply swing the flag. Left, right, somehow from here to… have you also draped your flat badly? I have a German flag flying from each window, and everywhere I have cactuses that wear flags.

Chris: Nope, it’s just simply too many square meters, it is just shitty, with a detached house and such. I have… in front, on the wrought-iron garden gate—

Swiss: —written “I am a German.”

Chris: You can come have a look at it, Elbchaussee 666 (this address exists, but it’s not his actual address of course).

Swiss: Yes, that’s—

Chris: *Still joking* No, my actual problem is, you know, I have this—I don’t want to mention the brand now, but I have this new sports car with these doors, these gullwing doors that open upwards.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: And they don’t have regular windows that can be rolled down, so I cannot put in those German flags, that you can hook in there normally.

Swiss: Aah.  

Chris: What am I to do? Of course, I want to be a little proud, too.

Swiss: Well, bro, just get yourself another car, so you can drive it around during the EFC, because that’s of course no solution. I understand that in your home at the Elbchaussee you live rather “understatedly.”

Chris: Yes. *laughs*

Swiss: There you don't necessarily show how proud you are of your country.

Chris: I still say, “[I’m from] St. Pauli.”

Swiss: Of course. But I do that too, [I say] “From the Schanze” (Neighborhood in Hamburg).

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Swiss: You know where I live by now.

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: That has as much to do with “Schanze” as… uhm.

Chris: Blankenese! (another city district in Hamburg, supposedly of “higher standard” than the Schanze).

Swiss: All right, Christian!

Chris: How are you, what did you experience? We spoke on the phone last week and now we're seeing each other earlier because you're going on holiday.

Swiss: Exactly. We must [speak] via phone again.

Chris: We pre-produce, so to speak.

Swiss: Exactly. Next week we must speak via phone again. I need to check that, because I have… right, with my Turkish card I need to check how I can phone with that, I have a Turkish card, yes, it’s really cool.

Chris: *laughs* Have you got a dual SIM or what?

Swiss: Nope, I simply have another mobile phone, I’m like a drug dealer on the move.

Chris: Do you also have two ID cards with different names on them?

Swiss: No, not with different names, but I do have a German and a Swiss ID card.

Chris: But what are the benefits of another ID card, if it has the same name on it?

Swiss: Well, I’m simply very proud of both.

Chris: Okay, okay.

Swiss: And sometimes it's just what kind of a day it is. Sometimes I get the Swiss Citizen out when something cool happens there.

Chris: What’s the Swiss Werner like? Tell us. Can you… or is that also…?

Swiss: The Werner from Switzerland is pretty much like the Chris Harms from St. Pauli—inauthentic.

Chris: *bursts out laughing*

Swiss: It’s simply—you feel very German, like—in your heart.

Chris: Yes, right. Yes, of course. Of course.

Swiss: Nope, hey, look. I have been… I have played with Phoenix, and then I was hiking for a week, Christian.

Chris: I know, we were talking on the phone.

Swiss: We were talking on the phone, and it was wonderful—and I got an incredibly severe blister on my foot.

Chris: Better than the other way around.

Swiss: The foot…?

Chris: A severe foot on your bladder (in German the word for both “blister” and “bladder” is the exact same).

Swiss: Yes. That’s really the kind of boomer humor that just doesn’t work with me, because I’m simply mega young.

Chris: *laughs out loud*

Swiss: What I was about to tell you, Christian, without you interrupting me: I was at Adolf’s. I went to Berchtesgaden (community in Bavaria, Southern Germany).

Chris: Adolf—who?

Swiss: Adolf H.

Chris: THAT Adolf.

Swiss: The one and only, man.

Chris: The one and only.

Swiss: I was at Adolf’s, and I thought to myself, “Look, since I am in Berchtesgaden now, I’ll go up to Obersalzberg ^[1] and have a look at the Eagle’s Nest ^[2] where the famous pictures were taken.” And it was so creepy, bro, one has to say. So, first of all I have to say… I didn't even know that Berchtesgaden, after he discovered it for himself, bro—it was like a Nazi gated community.

Chris: I honestly didn’t even know that “our seducer” was active in Berchtesgaden (word play: Hitler was called “Der Führer”/“the leader” in German, while “Seducer” is “Verführer” in German, so a similar word just with a different prefix).

Swiss: Of course. Obersalzberg—that doesn’t tell you anything at all.

Chris: Nope.

Swiss: That’s how it all starts, with not having a clue about history, that you forget things and that you allow things to happen again, Christian.

Chris: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Swiss: You can allegedly live in St Pauli for as long as you like.

Chris: Exactly. *laughs*

Swiss: Berchtesgaden is in the corner, as we already said, near Salzburg.

Chris: Yes, exactly.

Swiss: And in Berchtesgaden—actually, because he liked it so much there—all his loyal followers and so on, they took all the houses there, and it was like a gated community, and then you go up to Obersalzberg, there's an inn, and there you already get to look over the valleys and the mountain massifs, and there was a bunker complex. And it was so crazy bro, what kind of people there were. All Americans of course, and lots of Yanks, and you realize how cool they think it is. Do you know the one from “Little Britain”? 

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

Swiss: The… the police man, who always presents weapons and gets a boner while doing so, like “This is the AK47… blah,” and you notice he gets a boner.

Chris: Yes, but the Americans also have a completely different kind of aesthetic thing about the Third Reich. Not all of them, but you know what I mean.

Swiss: You simply have to say that the “Third Reich” brand was strong. Hey bro, it's like this. This myth fascinates people, and you have so many Americans there—

Chris: Bro, they knew marketing. You can say what you like, but if you… if you take the ideological aspect out of the equation and just look at the marketing machinery—

Swiss: Incredible. The army… Specter (Specter Berlin is the stage name of graphic designer, art director and director Eric Remberg. He is one of the founders of the Aggro Berlin label, Geto Gold Musikverlag and Aggro.tv GmbH) once told me that, he said, “Bro, the SS and the German Armed Forces… their uniforms were produced by Boss” —you know.

Chris: Dude.

Swiss: Right. And—

Chris: I didn’t know that.

Swiss: —he said, as absurd as it sounds: that was the best-looking army back then. And I mean, to this day… no matter what film you watch… the bad guys always have those helmets on, the SS coats.

Chris: Star Wars.

Swiss: That’s really insane, right? But we’re not trying to glorify that now, that was a cruel time, it was a cruel spirit that prevailed, and I despise everything about it, but you have to say that the marketing department was strong for what they were up to.

Chris: No, I don't want to glorify it at all, I just want to say that if you ignore the content—they knew exactly what they were doing.

Swiss: Inconceivable, this myth that they have cobbled together. And I just notice it, you are there—

Chris: Unfortunately, that’s why it worked so well.

Swiss: —Exactly. You are there on this Obersalzberg, there are these Yanks, you could go into these bunkers, and you realize how excited some people are. And with some of them, you get the feeling that they like it a little too much. And then I actually wanted to go up to this Eagle's Nest. Bro, it's so overcrowded. I wanted to get a ticket, and it was just… the queue was endless, and you just go up the mountain and then you're on this famous—I can also post a photo in the story here—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: They have such… there are very well-known pictures of him, against the background of Berchtesgaden and so on. And that was… bro, it was insane, I have to say. It's… this myth… you can for a bit… you're more reflective about it, of course, but you can understand to a certain extent why people were so fascinated by it. And today this aesthetic is everywhere, so anyone who somehow feels white supremacy or who sees themselves as part of the white movement or as a fascist anywhere in the world, just goes for this myth and gets themselves a swastika and—

Chris: That's why I just made this silly joke about “our seducer,” because it's actually true in a certain way.

Swiss: Of course. A very nasty charlatanism took place there, and as I said… I would like to emphasize once again that I despise everything about it. Apart from that, I went hiking, bro, and it was… I went hiking on the last day, I was on a mountain pasture in the Berchtesgaden National Park, you thought it was… You know in Stargate, when they go through the gate and are suddenly in another world?

Chris: I thought you didn’t watch movies; you’ve always been out and about in real life.

Swiss: Only in real life.

Chris: Yes, I know it.

Swiss: But I have definitely been there… ah, that's just such an interjection that totally throws me off, Christian, that's really—

Chris: Wrong template, sorry.

Swiss: Yes. In any case I sat there at this mountain pasture, and it looked like… well, bro, you thought you were in a different world. And then I sat there in the sun in a little yard, I ate a mixed cheese roll with different kinds of cheese that they had made themselves, behind me in the barn the cows were shitting, bro. I would never get a cow, their butts are always sticky with shit, when you enter [the barn]. They are cute, but it’s so much shit that they produce! 

Chris: But I love cows, I love them!

Swiss: Of course, cows are dope, and since I have stopped eating them, for more than a year, I can look them in the eyes with a clear conscience. Anyhow, long story short, I enjoyed it a lot, then I played two more shows with Phoenix. Yesterday I paced through to Hamburg from Bratislava, along with Whizzy in the car, for a spectacular 10 hours, despite the traffic jam.

Chris: What did you do in Bratislava?

Swiss: We slept there after Nova Rock (Festival in Nickelsdorf, Austria, really close to the Slovakian border).

Chris: Ah, okay, I see.

Swiss: It’s kind of on the way back already. Have you already been to Bratislava?

Chris: Nope.

Swiss: It’s nice there.

Chris: Or have I? Wait, bro… didn’t we play there once?

Swiss: It’s a beautiful city.

Chris: Fuck, dude. That sounds so stupid now, but I sometimes can’t remember them all, because we have been to so many cities.

Swiss: It’s a cool city. I know that feeling too, but in this case, it was definitely worth it.

Chris: Yes.  

Swiss: Bratislava looked very cool, and then we drove back through the Czech Republic, ate something in Dresden, a cool bowl, and then drove back. All right! How have you been, my dear? Tell me. I've talked so much about myself now.

Chris: I had a really exciting weekend, we went to… Do you know the Download Festival?

Swiss: Yes, I have heard about it.

Chris: One of the really big metal and rock or alternative festivals in England, it’s a festival on the Donington Park racetrack, a festival for around 75,000 people, almost the size of Wacken. Somewhere between rock, metal, alternative, with a bit of mainstream in there. We're on the main stage, with Limp Bizkit and Avenged Sevenfold headlining in the evening, so it's really great. It was a bucket list thing for me, the kind of festival I've been waiting 15 years to finally play. I was really happy about that. And the deal—

Swiss: Congratulations! And these are the moments… sorry for chiming in, with everything that's always going on, it’s these moments that you always forget about, where you should take a deep breath and say to yourself: “Bro, look what just happened here!”

Chris: Yes, but don’t count your chickens before they have hatched. Listen.

Swiss: *laughs out loud*

Chris: Reality check.

Swiss: Awww, I already love that story.

Chris: Exactly. Reality check, as we’re at that topic now. The deal was, we are the opening act, after us there’ll be bands, who are about the same size as us, a bit bigger, a bit smaller, doesn’t matter, but we are—they wanted to open [the festival day] with a bang. It’s not like we’re some superstars, but we’re also not some nobodies, and we are already doing quite well in England.

Swiss: They wanted to open with a bang—why did they think of you then?

Chris: Exactly, there’s a bang—pyro—and then we start.

Swiss: I see, there’s the bang, so to speak, and then comes the descent.

Chris: Exactly. “Should I set off the firecracker now” (in German, that’s a line from a song by “Die Ärzte”). Right. 11am, main stage. Everything is cool. We know these slots; they are great fun. It rained like hell the night before, everything was muddy, backstage, the logistics, everything was difficult, delays on the main stage.

Swiss: It’s England after all.

Chris: Exactly. We arrived there at 7.30 am, to have stage access at 8.30am, which means the crew can enter the stage, we can set up behind the stage. It was all delayed because of the weather. Then came the announcement: “Guys, sorry, you can play an hour later so that you still have time to set up.”

Swiss: Cool.

Chris: We found that super. Everything is cool. Admission for the people: 10am.

Swiss: Quick question: Was that on Saturday or on Friday?

Chris: Sunday.

Swiss: Sunday.

Chris: The day before yesterday.

Swiss: That’s actually a great time for Sunday, because—

Chris: Yes, right.

Swiss: The people who want to leave on Sunday say to themselves: “Oh come on, I'll treat myself to two or three bands if I think they're good.”

Chris: Exactly! So, really awesome. And… where was I? Right. Weather, delay, the people should enter the place at 10am, and that place is so huge, after the security check it takes you up to 45 minutes to get to the stage, because it’s just so huge. You kinda hike some kilometers.

Swiss: That’s wild.

Chris: Then came the first disillusionment: “Yes, unfortunately we had to shorten your set to 20 minutes.”

Swiss: Pfffh.

Chris: “That means, you play for 20 minutes.” I was like… oh, shit.

Swiss: Play only 20 minutes in total?

Chris: Play only 20 minutes in total. I was like… woah, fuck, shit.  That was a bit of a disappointment, and then came the announcement: “Yes, we still have to prepare the pitch, people don't come until 12 o'clock.” We were like: “Yes, but we start at 12 noon!”—“Yeah, they're coming while you're playing.” I was like: “uhm… uhm… fuck, dude!” And I knew exactly: the people who are at the festival all weekend, they come from the edge of the stage, they need three minutes to get to the stage, but they still have to go through the security check, which means it takes time. The people who have day passes, some of them only come for that day because of us, they need at least half an hour to get to the stage.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: That means—

Swiss: By then, you’re already finished.

Chris: By then, we’re already finished. In other words, we played this festival, this dream festival Download, and we started in front of zero people. *laughs* Well, there were people there, about 50 security guards in the pit, it was huge, it's just huge. We started in front of zero people, we ended maybe in front of 5,000-6,000, but that's “too few,” because normally, when people come to this place one to two hours before—

Swiss: It’s full.

Chris: —and we start at 11 o'clock, as we are already doing quite well in England, there would actually already be 20,000 people there! And that's why we did it, an exclusive festival this year, no other UK shows, so just this one show, more money spent than we earned—

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: —to put on a great show. I mean, we sent a truck there with all our shit and then you play 20 minutes and start in front of zero people. That was so… ouch. And it wasn't bad, it was nice, it was interesting, it was kind of awesome to see the people and also the ones we made happy, but [there were also] hundreds of comments on social media: “Hey, I couldn't see you, when I got to the stage you were already done.” So many people [got] disappointed and then you go back home and think, “Man…” Of course it's a luxury problem, I don't want to complain, elsewhere kids don't have anything to eat, but that was—

Swiss: *laughs* He goes “elsewhere kids don’t have anything to eat.”

Chris: Yes, but that's how it is! You know what I mean, I always have to level myself, tell myself bro, that's really no problem, but—

Swiss: May I briefly say something?

Chris: —but within my bubble, sorry, that was a shame. That was sad.

Swiss: I admire the fact that you still did it. I am always very impressed by your professionalism. I would probably have said: “Oh yeah? Okay, 20 minutes? Do that performance yourself then!” I probably wouldn't have been able to get that shit done to me. But of course, you’re exactly right. They're so… I know these situations too. We also had this at the Happiness Festival with Swiss und die Andern in our first season, I think. Bro, we were the opening act too, right as the doors open and the people enter, and in the end it looks cool, but—

Chris: But for how long were you around already then?

Swiss: That was in our first year.

Chris: See. In the first year—I wouldn’t have cared.

Swiss: Yes. Yes.

Chris: I would have said, “Ey, whatever. It doesn’t matter.” But if you… you have such a slot, and if you know, there's a few thousand people coming just for you, and they can't see you in the end—

Swiss: Right.

Chris: It’s just… you want to deliver differently. That was really tough. And as I said, we… I don't want to talk badly about this festival, they just couldn't do it any other way because they had to prepare the site because it was like a bog. In those two hours when they weren't letting people in, they prepared the site with mulch, with hay, they drove over it with tractors, tipped tons of shit on it so that people wouldn't sink into the mud.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: But that's just… that was just… three days of your life, you think to yourself: “Fuck, actually more people were sad—”

Swiss: —than happy.

Chris: —than happy. That was just not cool.

Swiss: Bro, there are… I always call it those days when you crawl into bed like a beaten dog, pull the covers over you and I think days like that, they suck, everyone has them, but I think you should embrace them and realize that these things happen and that you can be very happy about everything good that happens and you're always a bit grounded. I don't know, have I talked about it in this podcast before? Kanye West with his… however? I think I have talked about it.

Chris: You have said something about Kanye West, but I don’t remember what it was.

Swiss: Where he presented his collection, and nobody showed up

Chris: I can’t remember it.

Swiss: And he said to his guys… they all were disappointed, “Embrace this moment, remember it very, very well. It will not always be like that. Always think back to this moment, when we have become really big.”

Chris: “When I’m the president.”

Swiss: Yes. And I think about that… It's a nice image to see that you have to allow these moments, you have to embrace them, you have to admit them to yourself, you have to say: “Today I'm going home like a beaten dog, and that's okay.”

Chris: I honestly didn't feel like beaten up at all, because on the other hand it was kind of uplifting to see people running towards us, dude.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: And just to make you aware of the dimensions, what we're talking about, what kind of view this is: Check this picture here, how far you can see up the mountain at the back and how the people are running from there, and to the left and right of the stage it goes on and on, there were another few thousand people standing there.

Swiss: Wow, crazy. But tell me briefly… did the festival somehow comment on it, like: “Hey guys, sorry, but that wasn't so cool”?

Chris: I honestly don’t know, because I have not spoken with anyone there, our booker did that, and we actually had to keep our heads up anyway, because afterwards we had an “interview marathon” with 10 interviews in two hours, and you don't want to pull a stupid—a bad face there.

Swiss: An “interview marathon.” I find it cool that you also do interviews.

Chris: But only as a marathon. Forty kilometers per minute.

Swiss: Yeah. I’m always like, “Who’s that? Oh no…” Of course, it always depends on who wants the interview, and what it’s about, but I’m—

Chris: So, that’s why you always announce every other podcast episode. Please get out your mobile phone, I have sent you something. To make it easy for you and so that you don't have to think for yourself and neither do I, I simply asked Chat GPT, the artificial intelligence, to write a podcast dialogue for us. I just want people to see briefly *laughs*—and us too—what happens when Chat GPT analyses us based on our data on the internet and suggests a podcast dialogue. I asked: “Write a dialogue of about 5,000 words between the two German musicians Chris Harms from the band Lord of the Lost and Swiss from Swiss und die Andern. The dialogue should be a conversation between the two for their podcast ‘Swiss and Harms.’” I start: (the parts where they read, are written in italics) Hey Swiss, it's great that we've managed to get together today, our fans have been looking forward to us sitting down and talking about what's on our minds for a long time. How are you doing?

Swiss: Chris, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I'm fine, thank you. We've just had a pretty intense tour, so I'm a bit exhausted, but also satisfied. And you?

Chris: I can't complain, we're in the middle of recording our new album and it feels like we're riding a creative wave.

Swiss: *laughs*

Chris: It's always exciting to make new music and see how the fans react to it. Speaking of which: How was the response to your tour?

Swiss: The response was incredible. It's always overwhelming to see how much energy people put into the shows. Sometimes I think we get more from them than they get from us. Wow, that’s… that’s a song!

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Swiss: “I get more from you than you get from me.”

Chris: That’s cool, that’s pretty nice. Well, and it goes on like this.

Swiss: Hey, but you realize that a lot of really famous people actually seem to do their interview answers with ChatGPT because that's slick shit that nobody cares about!

Chris: And at the end you also say—I have to quote you here—you still talk about the concerts and say: “It was as if the whole room was drowning in a sea of stars.”

Swiss: Oh my God.

Chris: “That was really moving.” What I also find very nice—wait a minute—I'll reveal a few more details about our new album. I'm not allowed to reveal a few names yet, but I can already say that we're working with a violinist friend of ours—

Swiss: *laughs*

Chris: —who has a very unique style, and we also have a guest appearance by a female singer who's quite well-known in the metal scene.

Swiss: Oh, wow. 

Chris: It's definitely going to be an interesting mix. Then you say that it's really promising… and so on! Maybe I'll post our whole conversation as text so people can read it all—

Swiss: And they can tell whether they can recognize us in it. Or which of us two gets imitated better by ChatGPT, you could maybe say.

Chris: Well, I recognized you a lot when I read that you drowned in a sea of stars.

Swiss: Yes, true, it’s very promising what’s going on there.

Chris: I wanted to say one more thing very briefly, with very big thanks and greetings out there, because many frequently… so, there are a lot of comments where people say: “Can't you do the podcast in English?” And I'm like: “Uhm… sorry, no, we want to do it in our—”

Swiss: This is a German Podcast with German people.

Chris: Right, we want to speak in our mother tongue, so we really can speak freely. But there is a page on social media, well there are social media channels, Facebook, Instagram, I don't know, you just have to search for it, “Translation of the Lost,” it's a collective of a few Lord of the Lost fans who translate every episode into English and write it down.

Swiss: Yes, dude! Best regards, guys!

Chris: That’s so hardcore, they are meanwhile at episode 5, I think. Think about it—an hour of chatting, at our speed—

Swiss: Transcribing and translating.

Chris: And then… as indistinctly as you speak, so—also indistinct in terms of content, so… just so you know what I mean… it takes ages.

Swiss: Also to filter out the meaning [of what I’m saying].

Chris: This!

Swiss: Same with you.

Chris: And how do you even translate “Digga”? (translator’s note: we use: “Bro” as that’s about what it means)

Swiss: “Thicker.” I’m the Thicker.

Chris: So, I just wanted to say: Hey, thank you very, very much, that's ultra crazy.

Swiss: Why do you show “thumbs down” now, and roll your eyes?

Chris: Man, I have told you, honesty is not always good!

Swiss: Honesty is not your hobbyhorse.

Chris: Okay. So, let’s get into the actual—

Swiss: Alright. Listen, Christian.

Chris: —topic for today.

Swiss: Today we are discussing a topic that I would actually say is perhaps not the most prominent topic for our followers, it's about migration, I want to talk to you about the community and society—not about the country, to me the country is… I don't think in terms of countries, and I don't think in terms of flags, but I think in terms of communities.

Chris: And above all, about integration in general.

Swiss: Exactly, and I would like to—with the background of the elections (translator's note: European elections on 6 June 2024), which we have already talked about—I asked myself: how can it be that so many young people are obviously voting on the right, how can we make sure that these people don't get the vote? And I realized… I had an experience a fortnight ago when I went for a walk, and that's how we came up with this topic: I was walking through the City Park ^[3] with Hermine (translator’s note: his dog) on a sunny day.

Chris: And there you drowned in a sea of stars.

Swiss: I waded through a sea of stars and bathed—and so did Hermine, and it was crazy, it was overcrowded. You know Hamburg City Park, for all of you who are not from Hamburg, City Park actually consists of a huge meadow in the middle with many smaller meadows around it, and in summer there’s really “high life” there. And it was full-full-full. I walk there with Hermine, I look around, and I see huge groups of people having a barbeque. I see there’s a group of African people having a barbeque and playing soccer together, over there it’s a group of Afghans, there is a group of… I would say it was Ukrainians, a lot of them, over there it’s a group of Germans having a barbeque, there are the Turkish people having a barbeque together… and I thought, “Wow!” I was like, “Everyone keeps to themselves here!” And then I thought, “Fuck, somehow that’s not multicultural either!” So, multiculturalism can't mean that all groups, including the Germans—I'm putting all this in inverted commas—cook their own soup or fire up their own grill, but multiculturalism lives from the fact that we do it together, doesn't it? In other words, that we get together from all nations and from all ethnic groups, who somehow live together here in Germany, and form a new community, far from our homeland, wherever it may be, that together we form a community that is something new, and different from where we come from, also different from how it used to be here. I dread the “Germany as it used to be,” you know. I think it's very nice when everyone is together. But I saw that, and I thought somehow it doesn't work like that… That's where the term “parallel societies” comes from, so every ethnic group or origin, every nation does its own thing here, and in the end, we don't converge and build something new, and I asked you, why is that? So, what's the problem? Is the problem—and I think this is part of the truth—that people come here and are just thrown all together in one area? We need a new place and first throw them all together in the same initial reception center, and then they are all thrown into the first subsequent accommodation centers in one area, and then you just sit there with your fellow countrymen or with people who share the same origin and build your own society that somehow has no contact with other nations or with people of other origins and cook your own soup. I mean, you know, for example, I remember in Osdorfer Born ^[4], where there used to be a lot of Russian emigrants, Russian resettlers and Eastern bloc-ers, where the supermarkets were in Russian, you know? Neu-Allermöhe ^[5] exactly the same. On Steindamm (street in that area) you have a lot of supermarkets where everything is written in Arabic and—

Chris: Yeah, right.

Swiss: —and I’m wondering… sorry, that’s a very long introduction—

Chris: Dude, this is also a very long topic.

Swiss: I’m wondering, how can we manage to be a community here, from all nations, from all skin colors, from all religions and so on and so forth, that grows into something new from what the people who come here have known, so to speak. And then I realized that perhaps one problem, why so many people are turning away from the liberal parties, so to speak, and also from the left-wing parties, and I see myself as a left-winger, is that people have the feeling that we have double standards. And I was listening to the Lanz and Precht (Journalist/Talk Show Host and Philosopher/Author) Podcast and they were talking about how much those German rich kids on Sylt who were chanting “foreigners out” were picked on for a long time—including me, yes, I picked on them too.

Chris: —but not at all on the murder in Mannheim (a police officer got stabbed to death by an Islamic extremist).

Swiss: But the murder in Mannheim, by an Islamist, of a policeman, or the attack on this Stürzenberger… Stürzenbecher? (Michael Johannes Stürzenberger is a German journalist, web video producer, blogger and Islamophobic activist).

Chris: Stürzenberger.

Swiss: —who is a critic of Islamism and is also very hostile to Islam and such… that this was played down so much. And Lanz said, and Precht agreed with him, that of course this also has to do with not wanting to play into the right’s agenda by making such a big deal out of it. And then I thought: yes, despite everything, I believe that we've been applying double standards for a long time—and that includes me completely. So, this Stürzenberger is a disgusting guy, and I think he says a lot of things that are very controversial. On the other hand, he has the right to do so. Do you understand? So, I, as a person who wants to live in a free, democratic society… I don't have to like what you say, and I can also find it abhorrent, and I can also find it shit—but I have to put up with it.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: I can't go and stab you for it. And then… people also remember, in France, this Charlie Hebdo story, where they did these Mohammed cartoons and so on and so forth and where the editorial team was also attacked. And I just have the feeling that we on the left or I as a free-thinking, liberal person always point to the right and that's true… But what bothers me about the right? I'm bothered by a reactionary world view, I'm bothered by a world view that says we only want these and these people here, we don't want the others, we don't want anything to do with them. What bothers me… exactly, the hatred of everything that is different, i.e. homophobia, transphobia and all these things and this… yes, above all this reactionary, backward-looking world view that defines itself through this: We are different from them, and we don't want them here. And on the other hand, we have a lot of people who come here who are ultra-ultranationalist.

Chris: Their view of the world is virtually the same—just seen through a different lens, but not really different from that of right-wing extremist Germans.

Swiss: It’s exactly the same.

Chris: Only in a different color.

Swiss: I believe that this bigotry that we also practice as a liberal society is driving people to the right, and to a certain extent I can also understand that people feel like they're being taken for a ride because they say: “Hey, you point to right-wing neo-Nazis all the time, who are eggheads, but you never talk about people who have come here from another country and who are just as reactionary, who are just as racist and who are so backward-looking—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: —that, just like the right, they ensure that we do not become ONE community.

Chris: Yes, it's a bit like this conflict… this “Queers for Palestine” that we had the other day.

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: Yes, where you say: but in a Hamas government you are the first to be quartered! Seems like the cat eats its tail.

Swiss: And that's just—the strength and weakness of a democracy is always of course that it can tolerate other opinions. And if you just… we have, so to speak, in Europe… and Europe has a terrible history when it comes to proselytizing, when it comes to the crusades, when it comes to exploiting the whole world, and Germany has always… or Europe has always felt superior to the others. 

Chris: Right.

Swiss: And now, of course, it's still the same with the values: We are the enlightened Europe, and we can go to the third world and tell everyone how to be a good person and what a—

Chris: This arrogance still clings to us.

Swiss: Exactly! Exactly! And of course, people also feel fucked up by that. On the other hand, there are also certain things here that I'm very happy about. I'm glad that we live in a country with a secular society. This means that the church and religion are not more important than the community itself.

Chris: Yes, we are not… well, politically speaking, we're not 100% secular, so France is a bit further ahead in terms of the separation of church and state, but in principle, socially speaking, yes.

Swiss: Well, I do think that we have… so I don't have the feeling that a lot of laws have been passed here in recent years, or as far as I remember, or at least I didn't realize it—

Chris: No, that's another barrel I've just opened, I mean, secularization is actually something… one hundred percent, which I think would still do us good in Germany.

Swiss: Exactly. So, I don't know, you'll have to explain to me again what problems you see there, but in any case, I haven't had the feeling so far, since I've been actively involved in this, “Oh, the church has had a hand in this and that law again.” That's certainly the case, I just want to say that when I see people demonstrating on Steindamm (Steindamm is an important main street in the Hamburg district of St Georg)—

Chris: —and declare the caliphate, yes.

Swiss: —and declare the caliphate, then I just have this… then I get a kind of anxiety, because I think: okay, guys… well, first of all bro, I have friends from every culture—no, that's not true, but from a lot of cultures that have a religious background. And I don't really care what you believe in. Nevertheless, I think religion is a private matter. And if your religion is more important than the community, or if your religion is supposed to shape the community, so to speak, and you say: anyone who doesn't want a caliphate, or anyone who doesn't want Sharia law or whatever—

Chris: Perhaps briefly for those out there: Caliphate is a theocracy.

Swiss: A theocracy.

Chris: In this case based on Islam, as in the IS, for example.

Swiss: Exactly.

Chris: Exactly.

Swiss: And you see these people and think: Okay, you live here, you're using the liberal rights that allow you to do this demonstration, but you want something completely—well, you're demonstrating for something completely different! That brings us back to the crux of democracy. They are quite obviously against democracy, just like the right-wingers are.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: It has something absolutist about it, it has [to be] so and so and so, something fascist, of course, because… either you think this way, believe this way, live this way, or you don't fit into this system. You will be discarded. And that's the same with the right, it's fascist!

Chris: “Discarded” in this case also means “no longer alive.”

Swiss: You demonstrate here, you use all the freedoms and rights, you have benefited from this community here, you were able to study, you went to school—and then you shout something reactionary, something backward-looking that doesn't correspond at all with the values I stand for, even as a liberal, left-thinking person. I want to live in a world where it doesn't matter what you believe in. In which it doesn't matter who you love, what you love, and in which you can fulfil your life plan and your dream of life as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. And that's exactly how it is… Bro, I don't need to tell you, I've experienced so many times in my life that parents or friends with whom I got on really well had such reactionary thoughts about certain things, so… including this flag-waving with other nations. “Yes, I'm a proud…”—whatever. Bro, you know, and I also think holding up the German flag is so disgusting because I don't think your German nationality says anything about you. Why do you come here and define yourself like that and say, “I'm a proud Afghan” or “a proud whatever.” And then you have to say: Yes, okay, but now you're HERE. And if you define yourself so much by the fact that you originally came from this country, or your parents [did], to what extent does that build a bridge between us? It doesn't build a bridge, it builds a wall between us, because I'm not from there, you're from there, and you only define yourself by that. Fuck that! And sometimes I get to a point where I think: okay, if that's so important to you, your origin, from there and there and there… then why are you here?

Chris: So, you've opened so many barrels here now, there's so much to say about it.

Swiss: Drink them all in.

Chris: To perhaps answer the last question very quickly: sometimes people have no other chance to be somewhere else, they can't go home at all.

Swiss: May I very briefly give you a counter-answer? 

Chris: Sure. Please.

Swiss: That is all correct.

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: Nevertheless, the question arises: to what extent does it help our coexistence if you only refer to it… I don't even want you to go anywhere else—

Chris: No, no, no.

Swiss: That's not the point for me, the point for me is: Why are you hanging this thing so high? The flag from your country. Who cares about that? You're here now, I'm here now. We are more than the countries we originally came from. Stop it! I think this sucks with the Nazis and I think this sucks with you too. Be here and build a community with me, where we can all feel comfortable!

Chris: So, I have such a huge slate of topics— oh, now I said “huge slate…” I have such a huge slate of topics here (translator’s note: the German word “Latte” can both mean “slate” as well as “boner”).

Swiss: He said “slate/boner.”

Chris: Yeah. I don't really know where to start. On the one hand, there are integration stories from friends of mine, of various colors, who have told me themselves… I actually spoke to a few of them in preparation for the podcast because I wanted to get their direct opinions. Experiences. Because of course we're not in a position to know what it's like to have to integrate. And I really have to say something briefly in advance: I have friends and acquaintances of every origin, skin color and religion, and we can all [deal with] each other peacefully, but they all have their stories to tell. One thing to form a “vault” for a moment, I had to write it down to organize my thoughts a bit: I made two columns where I said: What do I have no problem with, in people, and what do I have a problem with, in people? Especially against the background of migration, integration and living together as a society. I have no problem with religion. But I do have a problem with fundamentalism. Excrement—*laughs, corrects himself* no, with extremism. Oppression, and I have a problem with proselytizing. And I have a big problem with “I'm better than you, I'm right, I'm intolerant.” Lack of respect, restriction of freedom. I'll go back to the other column. I don't have a problem with the politics of the country you come from in general, because that's domestic politics, I don't need to get involved. I also have no problem with the ideology you bring with you when you come here. But I do have a problem with extremism, for example. And with “I'm better than you.” I have no problem with your ethnicity and skin color, I couldn't give a shit less about them, and I like a colorful world view, I'm happy when I see lots of people of different colors in the truest sense of the word. But I hate it when certain ethnic affiliations are favored, no matter from which perspective. And I find it just as shitty when some white people go there and say: “No, I don't like being there, there are too many black people or too many…” you know what I mean.

Swiss: Yes, or when white people say: “I definitely want my daughter to marry a German,” or—

Chris: This, for example.

Swiss: “He isn’t allowed into my house.” What’s that?

Chris: Yes, but it's also difficult for me the other way round if I have the feeling somewhere in Germany that “okay, I'm no longer accepted here with my skin color.” I think it sucks in every direction. The same goes for origin, sexuality, gender, age, style, appearance, it doesn't matter. I really don't care about anything as long as, on the other hand, if I can't draw a dot—a connecting line, like in a mind map, to extremism… I always want to say “excrement,” what's wrong with me? To extremism, nationalism, national pride, assault, and so on. The second is the tolerance paradox that you just mentioned, i.e. tolerance towards intolerance, and I'd like to talk very briefly about a book that I read six months ago or so, the book is from 1945, a bit older, it's by Karl Popper and it's called “The Open Society and its Enemies.” The core of this book is the so-called “tolerance paradox.” The tolerance paradox is described as follows: A tolerant society enables intolerant forces to limit and possibly even abolish their own tolerance.

Swiss: Weimar Republic. ^[6] Adolf Hitler, NSDAP (National Socialist Party). That’s exactly what happened back then.

Chris: Exactly. And we… I partly have the feeling that we're also in the middle of a maelstrom at the moment, but not just in terms of domestic politics, not just the right-wing Germans, but also what we talked about earlier, that somewhere here the caliphate is being proclaimed at Hamburg Central Station, which is ultimately just as poisonous for me as right-wing extremism. All right. And now the question is, if we take a quick look: what does intolerance mean? According to this book, intolerance means, for example, the refusal to engage in rational discourse. Incitement to violence against other ideologies. And now the question is: should we be intolerant of intolerance? How far can you take it? So, am I intolerant if I am intolerant of intolerance? So, this problem of “No respect for disrespect,” we also did a Lord of the Lost song that deals with this and I came to the conclusion for myself that I'm not really a completely tolerant person when it comes to this, because I can't accept it when forces, whether internal or external, undermine the system of freedom that we have, democracy, human rights, bit by bit, to such an extent that at some point we end up with forces taking over and undermining it because I have been tolerant for so long.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: Of course I can't be actively intolerant; I can't go to a demonstration like that and say: “Guys, what are you doing there? Why don't you listen? Let's talk here for a minute!” I'll just get a punch in the face; it won't do any good. It's a process that I can't control on my own as an individual. 

Swiss: And that’s probably why you voted blue, Christian, because you—

Chris: Of course, I ticked/made my swastika at blue (non-translatable play on words: a cross/a check, like at an election, is called “Kreuz” in German, and the Swastika is called “Hakenkreuz,” literally “a cross with hooks”). But you understand the problem, this tolerance paradox—

Swiss: One hundred percent.

Chris: —so that we try to be tolerant… but where is the limit reached where I say: tolerance means “to endure” somehow, from others… but at what point can I no longer put up with it? And there are things happening now, and as I said, both internally and externally, some of which I can't put up with.

Swiss: I think—

Chris: I don’t WANT TO put up with them, let’s put it that way.

Swiss: In the end, I'm always… I start from the point: I think… I love a multicultural society. It's a society in which everyone can learn from each other, in which everyone becomes something new together, because society is always evolving. I think it's a problem when societies don't manage to come together. I think you can see that particularly in the Scandinavian countries or in the Netherlands, which have always had a very long history of migration and have actually always been very liberal. Now, it's because parallel societies have formed, because people have somehow been left to their own devices and haven't managed to live together—of course that's not always the case, there are wonderful [societies] everywhere and it—Hamburg is for example a wonderful story of that.

Chris: It’s not like in Paris, for example. Exactly, yes.

Swiss: Nevertheless, there are also problems that have arisen, and this liberal society has at some point turned into a very conservative, even reactionary society, as you can see everywhere, now also with Wilders (Dutch right-wing politician) in the Netherlands—

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: —that the right-wingers are being elected. And in Germany it's also the case that the right is becoming incredibly strong, and all the experts agree on this: migration is a major issue. With everyone. And people don't feel they're being handled well. And I just have the feeling that for the time being… I'm convinced that Europe has made its wealth for many centuries on the backs of the poorest of the poor, from countries—

Chris: Colonialism.

Swiss: —which we call the Third World today.

Chris: Exactly.

Swiss: And that basically, each and every person has a right to come here and strive for a better life. And I think a big point that we've neglected a bit, the “social contract” between us, when people come here, means support and challenge. So, if you throw everyone into a corner, then you're not supporting them. Then you're not challenging them either.

Chris: I have a few more stories about this.

Swiss: They don't have to come to terms with other nations, and they have no chance of doing so. Nevertheless, I think there are also things that can be demanded [of the migrants] more clearly. So, you come here, and you don't want your child to play with children from other countries. It is important to you that your daughter or son marries a person of the same faith without fail and usually even from the same ethnic group, whatever that is.

Chris: I also have a story about this topic.

Swiss: I apply that to Germans, to Muslims, to Hindus, to everything. I think that if you come here, and it is important for you that your son/daughter marries within your religion and your group, I ask you: how does that build a bridge between us?

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: That doesn't build a bridge, it builds a wall, because you only—to put it disgustingly—reproduce within your own species. And we are not going to become ONE community. It’s exactly the same with—

Chris: This: “We are one people.” “Us too.”

Swiss: Exactly. When you say, “I am a proud this” or “I am a proud that” and blah blah—then at some point you must ask people the question: okay, if you're so proud of the country you fled from because you want a better life here… what are you doing here? You are HERE now, and now you should be proud of… fuck countries and flags, you should be proud of the community you're building here with us. And what does it mean to move to another country, sometimes under the most terrible conditions? It always means that I must leave my own values and my own norms behind a bit, get out of my comfort zone.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: You see, you and I can't—I can't go to Kabul with you either if we're a gay couple and hold hands there, you know? 

Chris: It's that “other countries, other customs” thing. And it also applies on holidays.

Swiss: I know what I'm getting myself into. And I know that I have to come to terms with it to some extent and can't just come and say: “Yes, but that's the way it is with…” We as the great, enlightened Westerners, as far as I know that's even the case with… [can't find the word he's looking for] well, never mind. I just want to say that emigrating, fleeing and coming to a new society always means getting out of your comfort zone.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: It means that I can't just go somewhere else and then I'll be taken care of, because that's the way it is in this country, but it also means that I have to question my convictions, my experiences, my values to a certain extent if I'm interested in building a new community with the people here. And that should be my aspiration. And if it's just my aspiration to go there and say: “Hey, I'm not going to give a shit about the language, I'm just going to hang out with my people here anyway, my children are only going to marry my people anyway”—bro, then I'm sorry, you're no good then! Do you understand? Then you're no good. In the end, we're a big house, and everyone who comes has to help somehow so that we can live together nicely, that we're a good community. And if you don't care about the others, and only your people… bro, then what do you want here? And I think that this problem—or sorry, then I'm done—this paradox—that we as the liberal left point to the right and don't say: “Yes, but I also think the guy who wants his daughter to marry only in their religion is shit.” I don't even come into contact with these people because I don't believe what they believe, and that's an exclusion criterion for them, or they look down on me or they find my values too soft or find it embarrassing that I have gay friends and so on and so forth, because they despise that. Sometimes you just have to say: Guys, what are you doing here? 

Chris: You're right in the middle of this tolerance paradox, because you say you're in favor of integration, in favor of migration, but when you sort of say: I have to celebrate whatever values are brought along with whoever, and I just put up with them, even though they contradict EVERYTHING we're trying to build together.

Swiss: Yes, especially what we are fighting on the right, because we have a long history there—

Chris: What we abhor there. Exactly that is the problem. As Germans for example, we have also learned, that we are not allowed to be critical of certain other things that are extremist.

Swiss: Is the text now: “You're not allowed to say anything anymore,” Christian? “In Germany you are not allowed to say anything anymore.” *laughs*

Chris: No, it’s generally different.

Swiss: It’s not woke. It’s not woke to say, “I think…” like to point at other religions and such, as a German, as a white person. It's always tricky and we know that and that's why it's a difficult episode for me. I think it's our duty and our podcast has gone so well so far as we really don't try to follow any agenda completely, but we talk about what concerns us and what burdens us and what we believe, and I think we have to make sure that we also show people, no matter where they come from: believe what you want, love who you want, but all the things that you do that don't build bridges between us, that don't lead to us becoming ONE community, a multicultural community—those are harmful to us. And we don't want that. And then you have to think: is that more important to you, that you say: “This is how we've done it for thousands of years, and this is how it is, and everything else is weak or I don't respect it and I don't want anything to do with it”—or did you come all this way and say: “Okay, the most important thing for me is to first build a community with the people here, in which I have to step away from positions, in which others have to step away from their positions”—society is changing in both directions! And that's a good thing. But it must always take place in a free, tolerant, and above all, bridge-building way. Otherwise, it is doomed to fail. Look at all these countries where things are escalating, and look at the almost 20 percent of the AfD ^[7].

Chris: What I just meant is actually not that it's not woke, but that it goes much deeper, so also… For example, what I mean by that is: as Germans, for example, we learn to be extremely careful as soon as we use the word “Judaism,” I learnt as a small child that I'm not allowed to say anything bad about it. However, if I can now stand up and say that I abhor certain religious fanaticism and extremism, then I can't just look at the Catholics, the arch-Catholics, but I also have to say that I don't find Islam, but Islamism, fatal. Then I must also say that ultra-orthodox Jews do not carry tolerance on a big sign in front of them.

Swiss: Horrible, and I also want to—

Chris: —and I briefly want to… that’s not “Now, it is not forbidden to say that, is it?” but this is purely analytical, and I would like to have the right to criticize it, that's what I wanted to say. I think it's important that we talk about it. I am not a Nazi when I say that I find ultra-Orthodox Jews and their laws problematic if they are to exist within a tolerant society. You have to take a look at Stamford Hill in London, for example, where 20,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews live in a neighborhood that is virtually isolated. So, we no longer use the word “ghettoization,” that's a term from the Nazi era, but it's more or less a “voluntary ghettoization.”

Swiss: Same goes for Williamsburg, New York.

Chris: Yes, for example. And I've experienced that first-hand. We shot a video in London last year in a film studio, or in a club, I can't remember exactly, it was on the outskirts of Stamford Hill. And in this building where we filmed there were some offices where only ultra-orthodox Jews worked. And I was walking around there in my stage clothes during the video shoot, and there were a few [standing] in the corridor, and I just tried to say hello.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: They didn't talk to me. And the two women who were also there, were immediately sent loudly into some room by the men and the door was shut.

Swiss: I see.

Chris: And then I—

Swiss: You feel like a bad person with whom everything is wrong.

Chris: Exactly!

Swiss: You don’t even look at him, you don’t talk to him.

Chris: Exactly. And I would like to be allowed to criticize this without people saying: Chris Harms is a Nazi because he finds this system problematic.

Swiss: Exactly.

Chris: But what I wanted to talk about briefly in general with regard to integration, because based on the experience reports I've gathered, you always have to ask yourself: the people who come here, or when we go to another country, even if it's just on vacation… do I want to be integrated? Everyone who comes here… do they want to be integrated? There are such and such, there are people who come here who want that. They want that. There are certainly also people who don't want that. They are happy to have their own bubble here.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: I think that's very individual. The second question is: will I be given the chance if I want to be integrated? Do I have the breeding ground here to be integrated? And here we have to differentiate between point A and point B. Am I given the chance from the outside, i.e. German society and everyone else who is here and is now part of German society? And also, from within. Because many kids who grow up here, for example, don't decide that for themselves. They were born here, but they don't get the chance to really integrate because their parents might not want them to. In other words, we have these two points. Do I want to be integrated, and if so, will I be given the chance? Both from the inside and from the outside.

Swiss: I have to make a quick… I am one hundred percent convinced that people who come here should have the chance to be integrated at all levels. That's a question I can't answer either. So, whenever people talk about the refugee cap, I always think it's just a… actually a disgusting word, because I think everyone should have the chance. On the other hand, of course, if you look at a lot of communities—if you throw 500 people into one place—how are they supposed to get to know other people? But one thing you know for sure, if you put family XY from XY in an apartment in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel ^[8], then they will automatically have opportunities and above all, be forced to communicate with other people.

Chris: Yes, right.

Swiss: And so, people from different cultures and religions get to know each other and realize, “yeah cool, look how they do it, I find that exciting,” and they exchange ideas and grow into something new. But if you cram everyone into one area, that won't happen.

Chris: Exactly, this ratio. Everyone talks about it, says, “Uh, that's a taboo subject, such a percentage limit.” And I don't want to commit myself to that or suggest a ratio, but that's the thing, two examples: you have a class of only German kids, 25 German kids, and now the first child comes from another country. Like this. If the others allow it and want it, does it have a chance to integrate? Probably a very good one. Let's exaggerate completely and say we have a class in Germany made up of 25 kids—

Swiss: May I briefly—

Chris: Yes.

Swiss: —on the other hand, of course, you also have to say, there is a chance that these 25 kids here will say “Ewww, what does he want here.”

Chris: No, that's why I said if they allow it. Exactly.

Swiss: Yes, but that's also important, what… there must be this awareness on all sides, and that's what we criticize about the right-wingers, that we say: these 25 children have a duty to take care of this child and say: “Hey, here, come on, what do you want to eat, let's play together!”

Chris: “They have the duty,” exactly. If we now reverse the ratio and say we have a class of 25 kids, all of whom come from somewhere else, and perhaps only speak German to a limited extent, and there is ONE German child in the class… does integration work then? Probably not. A friend of mine also said, he allowed me to tell it; Askeroth, he's Greek, he's the singer from Nachtblut, he also came here as a teenager, as a child, and he was… went to a school class where he was the only Greek child. There were three Greek boys in the parallel class. And he said that he—on the one hand, he was given the chance to integrate, and also, he had no other option. He learned to speak German super quickly, although his parents still speak rather broken German, and with his three colleagues in the parallel class, it took much, much longer, and was sometimes very problematic because they liked to keep to themselves. Maybe also because they didn't get the chance from the others. Another example, here in St. Pauli, if you've ever walked through St. Pauli as a tourist, you'll have noticed: you walk through a street and there are only gay sex stores. In one street you'll only find cell phone stores run mainly by Turks. You find a street with only transsexual prostitutes. You find two or three blocks where almost exclusively black Africans live.

Swiss: Mm-hmm.

Chris: The thing is, this is actually something that was pushed by the estate agents in the ‘70s and ‘80s, whether it was well-intentioned in the sense of: let's pack them together so that they can help each other, or whether there really was a separation, I don't know, but that's still the case today. It's a bit more mixed now, but it's still the case today. And you sometimes have groups forming. There are whole houses in St. Pauli where I know the people there only speak Portuguese because only Brazilian transsexual prostitutes have lived there for 30 years.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: Who are just among themselves, so to speak, who don't even have the chance to integrate within a household community. And I ask myself, how do you solve a problem like that? We can't solve it today. We can also… I can't throw any figures into the room either, at what point do you say, “it's tipping over”? 20 percent, 30 percent? 10, 40, 100?

Swiss: I think, Christian, it's about creating awareness, and that's why I mean encouraging and demanding. I think it has to be clear that you have to have some kind of communication, that you want to say: Hey, we're trying to set this up in the best possible way for people, whether that includes an upper limit or not, but of course it's also like that, you know, when you throw everyone together and say: Do it! Then you get French suburbs, you know—

Chris: That's ghettoization again, yes.

Swiss: —who don't even have rail access to the center… to the city center, so that they must keep to themselves, and then you get Marseille and then you get North Paris and so on. I think that's important, that you… that can be done much better. I'm convinced of that.

Chris: But do you see the need to introduce an upper limit, from where you say, otherwise it will tip over at some point, otherwise you really will have a caliphate in 50 years—for example?

Swiss: I don't know. Man, societies have always changed, even in Germany. Pretending that the same people have always been here for thousands of years is… there have always been migrations, and I can see that it's also good. I just think that when I talk about “awareness,” this awareness has to be created on all sides, and that people say: Hey listen, if you're a German kid in a class with 24 other German kids, and there's an Indian boy or a Turkish girl or whatever coming… then it's your duty to embrace them and say: “Hey, let's become a community together!”—to put it bluntly. That's exactly what you must demand of people, you have to say: Look, you've fled from this country and that country, there's a war going on or you're being persecuted there—now you're here. Here, your religion, which you can live out however you like, is not as important as this community that we all are together. In other words, your religion should not become an obstacle to you getting to know other people from other cultures, religions, whatever. It should also not become an obstacle to your daughter or your son falling in love with someone—if they fall in love with a blond Swede who lives here, that's a problem for you. That you boycott that. That's not acceptable. If your son or daughter becomes homosexual, you must put up with it here.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: Then you must ask the people—it's like a kind of new social contract. Can you stand that? And if you can't stand it, you have to say you have no business being here. Because our community is based on the fact that everyone here can follow a free life plan, which is free as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

Chris: Yeah. This brings us back to my point, where I say: What bothers me, what doesn't bother me?

Swiss: Exactly. You have to talk for a short time. So, these countries that are sometimes glorified or the caliphate… okay. Everyone here took to the streets and applauded the Iranian women who took off their headscarves in protest against this Mullah regime.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: At the same time, you all take to the streets very indiscriminately, and talk about this October 7 and the Gaza war as if Israel had somehow invaded the Palestinian people and there was no Hamas, which is simply subsidized, pushed and promoted by the very Mullahs you were demonstrating against just a few weeks ago.

Chris: I have to say briefly that I find the Israeli conduct of the war absolutely disastrous.

Swiss: Terrible! I have to say this again, I think Israeli warfare is terrible!

Chris: Netanyahu is disastrous.

Swiss: I think this whole government is terrible, I think these orthodox settlers who are harassing the Palestinian people in the West Bank—I think it's terrible and disgusting.

Chris: Exactly, because you can't take sides—I know what you mean.

Swiss: Exactly. I'm not on anyone's side, I'm just on the side of freedom. And respect for each other. And I just think that always leaving Hamas out of the equation, saying: Hey guys, in the end this is a terrorist organization that is also taking the Palestinian people hostage! Because they could just as easily say: We don't want anyone to die here—

Chris: Yes, and who are striving for the government, so to speak.

Swiss: Right, and I'm just… yes. Look at all these countries, look at the Taliban in Afghanistan, look at how things are handled there. And then I always think you have to say: Come here, leave your flags at home. I don't want to see any flags here. That's why I always find the European Championships and stuff a bit shit when people walk around with their flags.

Chris: I find it cool except for the flags.

Swiss: And then I always think: What does that say about you? If that's all it says about you, then fuck off, because if you're nothing more than that, I want to… you know? So, then you're just building walls between us. I want to know who you are; I want to know how you love, it's… I can stand all that, I want to learn from you, I want to exchange ideas with you, but I don't want the beliefs you bring to the table to build walls between us. I want us to manage to build bridges here together and become a better society that compromises on all sides, except when it comes to everyone being free to follow their life plan in a way that nobody discriminates or ostracizes them for it, and I don't either.

Chris: Alright. Listen. Now let's talk again about the topic: Do I want to be integrated; will I be given the chance? From our point of view as Germans, for example, if we now say: we give the chance, someone comes into our class, we are a school class made up of—I don't know, a bunch of Germans and maybe we already have a few from abroad, and someone new comes in—all well and good. So now the thing is, when we start building walls, it starts with very small stones, and there are small people in our society who observe how we either build these walls—or prevent them. And an example from my son Mika's childhood, from kindergarten, and it was really, really difficult for me: how do I explain this to my son now without planting the seeds in him that lead to intolerance?

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: One of his best friends in kindergarten, Muslim, black… he didn't give a shit, children don't care about that at all.

Swiss: They don’t care about that at all. That’s so nice, isn’t it?

Chris: They don’t care about that at all. The kindergarten in St. Pauli, you can't imagine it any more colorful, and then he said: “Yay, I can now go to XY's birthday next week!”—and the next day he was really, really sad; he said he wasn't allowed to go. I said: “Why can't you go there?” Then he said: “Because only Muslims are allowed to go to the birthday party. But I don't know what that means.” And he was three or four or something. And then I asked again and I then… because I thought, before I discuss this now, I'll try to reach the parents, I didn't get through to them, I then asked at the kindergarten and they said, “Yes, unfortunately we can't do anything about that, that's the way it is. They don't want that.” So, now explain that to your four-year-old without… I then explained something, somehow trying to say, “Yes, there are different groups, and they play better together because…” I explained it like this: “There are playgroups and stuff, you know,”—I didn't tell him anything about religion, I said: “You don't know the rules, blah…” I don't know, I kind of told him like that—

Swiss: Bro, you tried to explain the unexplainable!

Chris: Exactly. He then somehow… I don't know, he understood it, he understood it in the end, because on the day of the children's birthday party I said: “Come on, you know what, we'll go to the zoo or something, and then we'll—let's invite a few other friends and we'll do something” and—I sort of did a parallel event, then he forgot about it. But at that moment I thought: Fuck, how gross is that? You come here, from another country, and you disinvite a child because he doesn't belong to your religious group—

Swiss: —that prevails in the country where you were before.

Chris: Exactly, where you come from. Why at all? Out of fear? Or because you detest it or…?

Swiss: In psychology, there is always the question concerning patients: What is someone doing this for? And you just have to… what for? So, in what way are you making this community a better place, in what way are you doing your child a favor, in what way are you doing the other child a favor, in what way are you doing us a favor? 

Chris: And that's an example where the parents don't allow the child… they practically actively block their own child's integration.

Swiss: Exactly. And I don't know… bro, it really begs the question: what are you doing here? You're [not] helping this community—when we talk about multiculturalism and how nice we think it is, you're boycotting us. You punish that—

Chris: That leads nowhere.

Swiss: Whatever, that's why I say: it's the spirit that rules, and it is always education.

Chris: Sorry, just very briefly, I just want to reiterate it very briefly, yes? Maybe I've already said it, but we had a bit of a glitch in the recording here. I don't want to give the impression that I have something against Islam in general for example. I have Muslims as friends. Islam is not the same as Islamism. We're talking about… what bothers me is political Islamism, that's not a religion, yes? And we shouldn't be afraid of criticizing extremism.

Swiss: No.

Chris: That's really important because I know for a fact, no matter how open we try to be and how tolerant we try to keep this discourse here, out of context, if someone listens in for a minute… you know how people are. That’s my reason.

Swiss: Yes, that is also very important to me. Guys, I don't want to read shit in the comments here, it's a very complex topic, and Christian and I share our thoughts on it, but it's very, very important to note that it's always… every example is different and every story is different and that you have to ask yourself: What can we do better ourselves, and what must we also demand if we want to be a free, democratic, tolerant society? And what strikes me, and also when I see it now, what shocks me is that so many young people vote for the AfD.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: I don't know if you remember when we were talking about Hitler, I said that after the First World War, when the Germans had the feeling—

Chris: —and about the Hitler Youth and such.

Swiss: —that they were being robbed, so to speak, then to have been exploited in the negotiations, then in the treaties, and German self-confidence was kicked in this way, and this gave rise to revanchism. And then someone comes along and says: “No, it's not wrong to be German, and we're strong!” and so on and so forth. And I believe that many kids feel the same way that they have this feeling: Hey, people are always kicking against the right here, and this right-wing, disgusting world view is rightly criticized and rejected. On the other hand, stories like the one about your son, which you just told us, happen to kids, many kids, and you ask yourself: “So why is THAT okay? And why—

Chris: It's not okay, but that doesn't mean I have to vote for the AfD.

Swiss: —am I, as a German child, always picked on like this? And why is that… why do I have to feel like this? They do it too!” I so often read in comments: “Well, when Turks hang out their flag, you don't say anything against it either.” And I think to a certain extent: Yes, that's right. You are right! And I just find any form of flag-waving and defining yourself by it… I think that's terrible bro, because you're not building a bridge. I can only say that I think this is a big, big task that we all have to face. But it is facing us ALL. And I believe that, as a society, we have to start showing a certain toughness against any form of wall-building. Just like you say to a German: “Hey, listen, you don't want a Syrian family moving into your neighborhood? Then go somewhere else, you idiot! You might as well go and get to know them and make a nice neighborhood out of your neighborhood!” Just as you have to do that, you also have to go to the others and say: “Hey XY, listen, you don't want your son… or a non-Muslim to be invited to your birthday party? Bro, that's the last straw!” It's about raising awareness. Of course, awareness often comes from education. People who very often… well, I don't want to open this can of worms, but people who are educated understand something like that, that you… it doesn't matter where the boy comes from, he should come over, it's nice that he's here, look, he's brought a present!

Chris: I would like to say that this is not always true. I would say that there are people who are very, very, very educated, but they display such intolerance out of complete conviction.

Swiss: That’s a different story, that’s not what I’m getting at.

Chris: Exactly. I get what you mean. Certainly, that's often the case, but I've seen very educated people who were very intolerant and really big wankers.

Swiss: I don't even want to open this can of worms, I think it goes… look, of course it has to do with this: what do we have in common? And what separates us? If you're in the… my colleague worked in the… he's Bosnian himself, or of Bosnian origin, he worked in one of those initial reception centers. And he said: “The Eritreans and the Afghans were constantly banging heads with 50 or 60 men.”

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: So, even there! You all fled, people, and then you bash each other's heads in and stick together with your people and that's why I believe that it's deep in people, of course, that they look for their own as a pack. I think that's something you have to acknowledge in the first instance. Humans search… “oh look, they look like me, they have the same religious background, they have experienced the same history as me.” I understand all of that, that's okay, but you still have to come to the point where you say: “THAT must not be the deciding factor in the society we want to become.” That can always be an obstacle, a problem, but everyone has to be willing to move on from there and say: that's where I come from, that's my history, that's my skin color, that's my religion… whatever. But I want to be something new here together with everyone. Because that's what it means to go to another country, or to go to another culture. You have to give up your old self to some extent, the people who have already lived there also have to give up their old self, and you become something new. but that only works if everyone feels comfortable. If it's based on exclusion and “feeling better because you're from there” or “because you've been here for a long time”—if it's based on that, then it won't be a good society and in the end, the very, very extreme forces always benefit, and mostly in Europe it's like that, and you see that everywhere. And also in the USA, it's the extreme right-wing forces that then strive for an intolerant approach to it, which goes beyond that, but then we're at “deport people,” even with a German passport, “get rid of them!” Exactly. And I think it's a huge issue, and we both… yes, I hope we haven't both lost ourselves too much in populist theses here.

Chris: I hope not, because it's not really meant that way, but you know how many people… snapshots.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: But before we close this, I still have two to three little integration stories from friends of mine.

Swiss: Okay.

Chris: But first a very small thought experiment, perhaps just for you out there, we don't have to answer that here. I came across this in Rome, I wanted to have a look at one of the really cool Catholic churches. Maybe it was even in the Vatican, I can't remember. It was hot outside, I had a cap on, and I went in and was immediately told: “Take off your headgear in church, out of respect.” And next to me were people with headscarves and someone with a Kippah, who were also visiting the Vatican for tourist reasons, Muslims, Jews. And then I said: “What's wrong with them?”—“They wear the head covering for religious reasons.” And then I said: “Why should I take mine off?” I was told: “Out of respect for our religion.” I asked: “And why are they allowed to keep it on…?” and he said: “Out of respect for their religion.” And now I ask myself: who is conforming to whom? Which respect for which religion is greater? The religion of the church you go into, St. Peter's in this case, I think to look at it, or the religion you bring with you that tells you to wear a head covering?

Swiss: Or your style, that you simply celebrate.

Chris: Or my style. Or maybe I have—maybe it's also something religious, only this religion, it's not recognized by the state and has no name, or… I don't know, maybe I have a disease, I don't have the top of my skull, I have an open brain, I have to wear a cap. Anyway, we don't have to answer that, but that was a thought game I had at the time: Church plus headgear, for religious reasons or not, and who has to pay respect to whom. The person going in with their religious headgear, or is it the law that says you can't wear headgear in church? And here we are, where you asked earlier, an example of separation of church and state, very briefly, when I say that Germany is not one hundred percent secular, when there are laws in Bavaria for example, that a crucifix must hang somewhere in the office. That wouldn't work in France, because in France, church and state have been one hundred percent separate for many years.

Swiss: Mm-hmm. I find that good.

Chris: And that, for example, is something where I think Germany still has some way to go. We're not really secular yet.

Swiss: I have to be honest; I've never met anyone in my life, at least in Hamburg, who was such a committed Christian. *laughs*

Chris: No, we don’t really have that problem here in Hamburg.

Swiss: You have to say that if you talk honestly, so to what extent is Christianity… so, have you ever met a girl that you weren't allowed to date because she’s a strict Christian?

Chris: I had—

Swiss: That actually exists, I knew a Polish girl, where they were very, very strict.

Chris: I had a very wild summer on vacation in Malta when I was 19, an arch-Catholic place, and yes, there was a problem—

Swiss: There you go! Yes, but I have to say that here, at least in Hamburg, you don't come across this with Christianity that often. I think—or do you have another story?

Chris: Three stories. I’ll make them very short. First of all, one of my oldest friends, Daniel. Daniel is gay, black, American. He came here when he was 18-19 years old and trained as a musical performer here. I dealt with that a lot back then, because if you're gay AND black, and you come to Germany in the late ‘90s, mid ‘90s—

Swiss: A difficult place.

Chris: The thing is: he told me… not only that was the problem, but internally he had another problem, because he's somewhere between black and white, so he looks like a black man, but he's quite light.

Swiss: Right.

Chris: In other words, he was not black enough for the blacks and too black for the whites.

Swiss: Oh yes, yeah.

Chris: In other words, integration is sometimes even within an ethnic group—you belong… so you're neither fish nor fowl, so… you're not accepted internally. Even more wild, another friend of mine, also black, but attention: Jewish. And now many will say: historically, there are no black Jews. Yes, if you start from the diaspora, you can't really become a Jew just like that, it's a difficult process, but attention: adopted child.

Swiss: Ah, I see. Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham, born October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Ontario is a Canadian rapper, R&B singer and actor) was raised Jewish, I learned just yesterday.

Chris: Think about what kind of problems he had, because if you say you're a black Jew… within Judaism, it's sometimes really tough. And the last thing I would like to report briefly is a beautiful story, one of the showcase integration stories. In the eighth or ninth grade, there was someone who was my best friend during my school years until I graduated—Slavik. Slavik came from Ukraine and had to flee Ukraine with his family for reasons I don't want to go into here. Ukrainian, Jewish, he hardly spoke a word of German, and he came to our class, he was welcomed with open arms. It was winter, he had no satchel, he had a plastic bag… he had no winter shoes, he had Chucks, in winter, in the snow, man! The next day he had shoes, a satchel, a jacket—from us. Slavik integrated so quickly, he became one of us so quickly and then he actually went through this integration thing twice, because in that very summer in Malta that I was just talking about, I was with Slavik for four weeks after graduation, we were together in Malta, we just dived all day, partied at night, somehow had a lot of fun, and there he said: “Bro, I'm emigrating to Australia, I'm going to be a diving instructor.” And then he took it upon himself again, emigrated to Australia as a Ukrainian refugee, who grew up in Germany, worked there for a few years as a diving instructor and met his wife after a few years, had children and so on, and is now doing something completely different there. And that is such a dream story of integration. 

Swiss: I think you have just created a beautiful… one thing, I thought of something, you said: “He integrated so quickly and became just like us…”

Chris: He became one of us.

Swiss: Integration also means that we always become a part of the person who is coming, you know?

Chris: Right.

Swiss: So, I think this “Go integrate yourselves!” should be seen as saying: we've always said gypsy schnitzel here, we'll keep it that way—

Chris: But by “to one of us” I don't mean “to us as Germans,” but from us, in the class. 

Swiss: I’m not trying to criticize you; I just want to move on from there. That's also so important that you learn yourself. And I actually want to… and then I think we might have reached the end… tell a story that always makes so much sense, for example—you know Jakob, the guitarist from Swiss und die Andern.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: Vegan for ages. Tobi, our drummer, has been vegetarian forever. That was always the case, at dinner they always said: “Can we please have it like this and like that?” Not once did Jakob talk to me about why I eat animals, and blah and blub and bleh.

Chris: Exclude proselytizing.

Swiss: And I watched him and a year ago I had the moment when I thought: “I don't want to eat meat anymore.” And in my opinion, that's how togetherness works. Hey, I live—my religion or where I come from—I do it for me. I eat this way; I believe this way. But it doesn't lead to me somehow telling you: I can't live with you—because veganism is also—very briefly, kind of like a religion for many—I won't tell you how to live, and I won't let the fact that I eat differently from you stand between us. We still sit together at the same table and eat together.

Chris: “Tell me what you like about it, but don't tell me why I suck.” Exactly! 

Swiss: Alright. And that, I think, is actually a nice picture of the way we should imagine a society, and I can only say that to everyone who is here and who comes here: People, it's about us together. It's not about where you come from and that you have some special claim to it, it's about the fact that everyone who lives here or very many who live here are very happy with the fact that you can express your opinion here, more or less, that you can live in safety, that you can be homosexual or queer, that you can follow different faiths and have different skin colors, and that we can all be a beautiful community here together that inspires each other and learns from each other. But if you come here or if you are here and you don't want it and you say: “I'm forming my parallel society here and I can't accept these values here and I can't accept this freedom and I despise it”—bro, then you have to ask yourself whether this might be the wrong place for you. And if you then say: “No, but it's still the right place”—then you shouldn't be surprised if other people say: “I don't want you here, bro.” Alright. “I don't feel comfortable with you, and I feel exploited and screwed by you because you take all the benefits of this free society here, but you're not willing to contribute to it.” And I believe that this will be a crucial question that will affect our society and the whole of European society in the future: can we manage to inspire each other, to embrace each other, to be prepared to move away from our own positions, however entrenched they may be, and to always hold up this community, which it could be, like some kind of Holy Grail, without meaning to be Christian, and say: THIS is what we want, we all want to live here together in freedom and peace and tolerance.

Chris: That's a good final word, but I must add, of course we can't solve anything right now.

Swiss: No.

Chris: We cannot solve the tolerance paradox. I just have to briefly summarize once again: all the things I am against are forces, whether from within or without, that restrict the freedom of others.

Swiss: Yeah.

Chris: And by that, I mean right-wing extremists as well as all the ideology that comes from outside, from other cultures and countries, which resembles right-wing extremism, only with a different lens. 

Swiss: With a different color, a different lens.

Chris: Exactly! And that's why it's sometimes difficult to be so unreservedly left-wing, if “being left-wing” means that I should embrace everything that comes from the outside without questioning it, which contradicts these values.

Swiss: And I also wanted to add a small footnote at the end.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: “Being on the left” actually also means, regardless of this: class war. And I think that's something that is also being forgotten these days.

Chris: People tend to forget that. Class war, yes.

Swiss: There are too few—there are very few people who have everything, and there are very, very many people who have very little, and these people fight each other in their poverty and define themselves by things like origin, skin color, flag, whatever, sexuality, religion and so on and so forth—that's not really the task we have. The task is actually for all of us together to create a fairer world in which not just a few people own everything, and the few, that's this “black on black crime” in the American ghettos, and those who already have so little fight each other because of things like that, but there's actually enough for everyone.

Chris: Still.

Swiss: Yes.

Chris: Yes. But we should use it well.

Swiss: Yes. Okay Christian, a wild topic

Chris: A really wild topic.

Swiss: I think the comments will definitely be wild. I hope, guys, please be factual.

Chris: I think you'll see from the comments whether someone has listened to the whole podcast or just dipped it in once.

Swiss: Exactly. Yes, feel free to write to us with your thoughts on this, but please stay objective, stay human and stay fair, and please don't put on brown glasses (Nazis are known as “the brown party”, so to put on brown glasses means to look at things from a Nazi point of view). Take care of yourselves and we'll see you in two weeks' time.

Chris: Or hear… in the holidays or something.

Swiss: By carrier pigeon.

Chris: Yeah.

Swiss: Bye.

Chris: I’ll send a raven.

 

 

[1] Obersalzberg is a mountainside retreat situated above the market town of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, Germany. Located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south-east of Munich, close to the border with Austria, it is best known as the site of Adolf Hitler's former mountain residence, the Berghof, and of the mountaintop Kehlsteinhaus, popularly known in the English-speaking world as the "Eagle's Nest. All of the Nazi era buildings (except the Kehlsteinhaus, which still exists and now serves as a restaurant and tourist attraction) were demolished in the 1950s, but the relevant past of the area is the subject of the Dokumentationszentrum Obersalzberg museum, which opened in 1999.

 

[2] The Kehlsteinhaus (known in English as the Eagle's Nest) is a Nazi-constructed building erected atop the summit of the Kehlstein, a rocky outcrop that rises above Obersalzberg near the southeast German town of Berchtesgaden. It was used exclusively by members of the Nazi Party for government and social meetings. It was visited on 14 documented instances by Adolf Hitler. Today, it is open seasonally as a restaurant, beer garden, and tourist site.

 

[3] Stadtpark Hamburg is a 148-hectare public park in the Winterhude district of Hamburg-Nord in Hamburg. Opened in 1914, the park is considered an important example of the transformation of German gardening and landscaping from a public garden to a public park.

 

[4] Osdorfer Born is a large, prefabricated housing estate in Hamburg. It is located in the neighborhoods of Osdorf and Lurup, close to the western city limits. Osdorfer Born has an area of 0.7 km². In 2004, 10,552 inhabitants lived here, resulting in a population density of 15,047 inhabitants per km²

 

[5] Allermöhe is a Hamburg neighborhood in the district of Bergedorf. It is located in the Marschlanden and is around 15 kilometers from Hamburg city center and three kilometers from Bergedorf city center.

 

[6] The Weimar Republic is the period of German history from 1918 to 1933, during which a parliamentary democracy existed in the German Reich for the first time. This era replaced the constitutional monarchy of the imperial era and began with the proclamation of the republic on 9^th November 1918.

 

[7] The Alternative for Germany ( AfD for short ) is a right-wing populist and in parts far-right political party in Germany. After being founded in 2013, it ran for the first time in the 2013 Bundestag elections, where it narrowly failed to enter parliament. In the 2014 European elections, the AfD managed to enter a national parliament for the first time. It subsequently entered all German state parliaments and, after the 2017 federal election, became the third strongest party in the 19^th German Bundestag with 12.6 percent of the vote. Since the 2021 federal election, the AfD has been the fifth strongest party in the Bundestag after a slight loss of votes. It has not yet participated in government at either state or federal level.

 

[8] Eimsbüttel is the eponymous and most populous district of the Eimsbüttel borough of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The district is characterized by Wilhelminian style quarters.

 

 

Translation: Margit Güttersberger

Proofreading: Helen Forsyth