The city of Rastatt in Baden-Württemberg has canceled a concert of rapper Kollegah planned for November 9th. Given the anti-Semitic, violent and women-despicable texts of the artist Rastatt could not be the venue of such a concert, said Mayor Hans Jürgen Pütsch (CDU), according to a press release of the city in a non-public town council meeting on Thursday.
Lines such as "My body defined as by Auschwitzinsassen" had brought the gangster rapper Kollegah massive anti-Semitism allegations, which rejected this decidedly. As a result of the disputes in 2018 the music prize Echo had been abolished. On Friday Kollegah's agency was initially not reachable for comment.
On November 9, the Jewish pogroms of the National Socialists are commemorated in November 1938. On the night of the pogrom from 9 to 10 November, Jewish shops were devastated, synagogues were set on fire, people of Jewish faith were attacked and hundreds were killed.
With a view to this commemoration day, the council of Rastatt on Thursday voted by a large majority to commission the city's "own enterprise culture and events" to cancel the concert scheduled in the Badnerhalle. "We are all called upon to give a clear signal, because as upright democrats we have a responsibility to uphold remembrance of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime on 9 November," Pütsch said. The local council made loud city clear that a Kollegah concert is not desired on another day in Rastatt.