Frankfurt Book Fair 2021: Jasmina Kuhnke's rejection due to right

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Wouldn't feel safe at the book fair: novelist Jasmina Kuhnke

Photo:

Marvin Ruppert / Rowohlt

A stand of publishers of the New Right at the Frankfurt Book Fair led to a controversy that is now also being noticed in the USA: The Washington Post reported on Wednesday about several authors who have canceled their participation in the fair.

The debate was triggered by the author and activist Jasmina Kuhnke, who is known on Twitter under the name »Quattromilf« and should have presented her debut novel »Black Heart« at the fair.

She canceled her participation in two discussion panels with a statement, which she also published on Twitter on Monday.

According to this, participation "because of the threat to rights" would only have been possible "under special protective measures" anyway.

After she learned that the Jungeuropa publishing house, which is run by the right-wing extremist Philip Stein, is exhibiting at the fair and that other right-wing extremists will be present as a result, a danger for her is "clearly present".

She regretted that "I only have the means of boycott to protect myself as a black woman."

The Anne Frank educational institution expressed its solidarity with Kuhnke in a statement.

It is "a disaster for our open debate culture when those affected by racism, anti-Semitism and misanthropy withdraw from the Frankfurt Book Fair as the largest debate fair in the country because they do not feel safe there," said Meron Mendel, the director of the educational institution.

Anyone who offers the "toxic ideology of the right" a podium on prominent bourgeois platforms is contributing "to the further normalization and spread of human hatred."

After Kuhnke, other authors also canceled their participation in the fair, including Nikeata Thompson, Anabelle Mandeng, Riccardo Simonetti and Raul Krauthausen.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the Book Fair and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels regretted the cancellations.

"Your voices against racism and your advocacy of diversity will be missing at the Frankfurt Book Fair."

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The state of contention: Jungeuropa-Verlag at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa

However, the book fair justified the decision not to exclude right-wing publishers: "Freedom of opinion and freedom of publication are our top priority." .

In a constitutional state, it is the task of the courts to ban publishers or their products.

Kuhnke's publishing house Rowohlt, on the other hand, declared: The right to freedom of expression "reaches its limits when the security and fundamental rights of others are threatened."

The Antifa magazine (self-designation) »The Right Edge« published on Twitter an excerpt from a podcast by the Jungeuropa-Verlag, in which the publisher Philipp Stein fantasized about what one would do with the journalist Andreas Speit, who is known for his research in the right-wing extremist milieu, when he visited the stand.

Stein joked with fellow podcaster Volker Zierke, and tattooed the word "Germany" in Fraktur on his face.

The fair emphasized that the safety of the participants had the highest priority.

It is based on "a comprehensive security concept that enables everyone to visit the trade fair safely." The presence of new right-wing publishers had already led to protests and a demonstration in 2017.

feb / dpa