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Igor Levit (left) and Danger Dan at the Opus Klassik awards ceremony on Sunday evening
Photo: Claudius Pflug / ZDF
ZDF cut criticism of AfD supporters from a laudatory speech for Igor Levit, causing irritation.
The music prize Opus Klassik was awarded in Berlin on Sunday evening.
One of the winners was the pianist Igor Levit, for whom the musician Danger Dan (»It's all covered by artistic freedom«) gave the eulogy.
Danger Dan, real name Daniel Pongratz, concluded his speech with the following sentences: "I would like to end this laudatory speech - simply to make Igor happy - with a message to all anti-Semites, racists, anti-feminists and AfD sympathizers in front of the television sets: You you're idiots."
However, these movements could only be heard in full in the evening in the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt and in the live broadcast.
In the recording of the gala, which was broadcast with a time delay and is available in the ZDF media library, the words “and AfD sympathizers” have been cut out – the abridged laudatory speech can be heard from 1:00:55.
Levit himself drew attention to the procedure on Twitter.
In response to media inquiries, ZDF stated that "an error due to time pressure" had occurred during the cut.
How such a precise intervention and time pressure go together was left open by the broadcaster.
Levit has already received several awards for his political commitment against racism and anti-Semitism.
He also positioned himself clearly against the AfD and described it as a "fascist party".
Together with Danger Dan he appeared in the »ZDF Magazin Royale« in 2021 to present their single »That’s all covered by artistic freedom«.
In the song, among other things, the AfD is attacked satirically.
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