Clear words of cult singer Udo Lindenberg to the strong performance of the right-wing populist alternative for Germany (AfD) in the state election in Thuringia. "24 percent And many still say: That will never happen again - but do not you see the same old new slogans on the walls of the houses?" Wrote the 73-year-old singer on Wednesday evening on Facebook. He finds: "The horror is going on in the country, not just on Halloween."
The AfD not only in Thuringia, but in September also in Saxony and Brandenburg retracted high election results. "We do not need backward-looking racists, hustlers and misanthropic arsonists in our beautiful country," Lindenberg writes in his post, which has been shared and commented on by users thousands of times. "We need new visions, creative power for the future, real solutions to all the glaring challenges of our time."
The musician had a special connection to the former GDR. Long before the fall of the Wall, he tried again and again to perform there, was in contact with the SED leadership and sang with songs like "girls from East Berlin" and "special train to Pankow" in the hearts of the East German fans.
Lindenberg has been positioning itself politically for years with statements against right-wing populism. He called in the past, other artists to show more attitude: There are many who did not express themselves in principle, he said in 2016. "They say we are pure entertainers, we are just talking about the motto: Make yourself a few nice hours, go to the movies, forget the world out there. "
But that does not apply to the entire industry. For example, the band Deichkind recently spoke about the shift to the right in an interview with Die Zeit. "We do not want to verbal retaliation, we want to wake people up and bring them back - we're not up for hate anymore," said band member Sebastian Dürre. The singer Sarah Connor becomes concrete in one of her songs: "AfD-idiots, you can not get my heart", she sings in the song "Ruiniert".
