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Fictitious wanted poster "Left-wing violent criminals" that Jan Böhmermann tweeted
Photo: ZDF Magazine Royale / twitter
The style is reminiscent of an RAF wanted poster from the 1970s – only there is no Andreas Baader here, but a Christian Lindner.
In addition to the Federal Minister of Finance, this fictitious wanted poster also shows a youth photo of the former SPIEGEL editor-in-chief and current "WeltN24" publisher Stefan Aust or the virologist Hendrik Streeck.
On Friday afternoon, moderator Jan Böhmermann tweeted a picture of this poster with the text "A reward of 100,000 DM is offered for information leading to the arrest of the wanted person" and thus caused a stir on social networks even before the new episode of his program was broadcast.
On Friday evening, the "ZDF Magazin Royale" made it clear what the tweeted poster was about: part of a satire.
No investigative research like in other episodes of the Böhmermann show.
As such research, Böhmermann announces the whole thing in a satirical exaggeration: At the beginning of the program, videos are shown in which AfD politician Beatrix von Storch describes climate activists as "green RAF" or Rainer Wendt, chairman of the German police union, of "chaots « and »extremists« speaks.
One might think, says Böhmermann, that the "Climate RAF" is only "a soup, just a Prittstift away" from "shooting the employer president".
But his editors found out that the FDP was “the new RAF” – and Christian Lindner was the new Andreas Baader.
The "hashtag of the week" is "#rafdp".
As evidence, the satire lists, among other things, that "modern left-wing extremists" tried to spread their political messages on YouTube, just as Christian Lindner does on his YouTube channel;
that Lindner and Baader had a penchant for driving a Porsche;
or that the Minister of Finance got married on the "punk island" of Sylt.
His wife, the journalist Franca Lehfeldt (also depicted on the fictitious wanted poster) is the new Ulrike Meinhof.
And the "Welt" group, for which Lehfeldt works, is the "journalistic arm of the new RAF."
The letter "e" in "world" is written "in lower case, like a typical letter of confession from the RAF," according to the satire, apparently in the manner of conspiracy-theoretic pseudo-explanatory patterns.
The action led to mixed reactions, for example on Twitter.
For example, while some users wrote that Böhmermann held up a mirror to certain media and politicians and "pressed the right button", others tweeted that it was "insidious".
"If everyone goes one turn too far because they always count on applause in their own camp, there is a loser," wrote Volker Beck, President of the German-Israeli Society: "democratic culture."
Beck continued to tweet about the hashtags “rafdp” and “KlimaRAF”: “Both are crazy”.
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