Rock im Park: "Hitler salute and racist battle slogans" - Headliner Pantera is criticized

Created: 01/10/2023 05:52

By: Tanja Kipke

Frontman Phil Anselmo is said to have repeatedly displayed Nazi symbols during Pantera performances.

© IMAGO/Yuri Murakami

The American metal band Pantera is scheduled to headline Rock im Park 2023.

The Nuremberg Greens are demanding their unloading – because of racist slogans.

Nuremberg – The Rock im Park festival has been based in Nuremberg since 1997.

Every summer it attracts thousands of rock fans to the Franconian metropolis.

Months before the event, the fans are excited about the line-up.

Gradually, more and more stars are announcing their appearance.

In 2022, the festival was able to take place again after a two-year Corona break, with Volbeat, Green Day and Muse as headliners.

Part of the line-up is already known for 2023.

Die Toten Hosen, Machine Gun Kelly, KIZ, Apache 207 and Pantera will come.

Rock im Park 2023: The Greens demand the unloading of headliner Pantera

The Nuremberg Greens demand that the US metal band Pantera reconsider their appearance.

"The former frontman, Phil Anselmo, repeatedly and deliberately showed Nazi symbols or yelled racist slogans," said the Greens in the Nuremberg city council.

The Greens consider his later excuses for his behavior to be trivializing and therefore all the more problematic. 

"The fact that the band is planning their reunion in 2023 of all times and wants to celebrate it on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds clearly exceeds the limit of what is bearable." The city faction is therefore demanding that the metal band be uninvited for the Rock im Park Festival 2023.

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Frontman of Pantera shows Hitler salute at concert and shouts "White Power"

The Greens are alluding to an incident that happened in 2016.

At that time, frontman Phil Anselmo showed the Hitler salute at a concert and yelled "White Power" at the crowd.

A video of this is still circulating on social media.

With Pantera's appearance at Rock im Park, "the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds are deliberately being misused for the staging and reproduction of racist and inhuman ideology," explains Réka Lörincz, spokeswoman against racism and right-wing extremism and a member of the City Council's Legal, Economic and Labor Committee. 

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Rock im Park: criticism of Pantera

Nassar Ahmed, chairman of the Nuremberg SPD, also appealed to the organizers via Instagram story to reconsider the appearance of the US band.

According to Ahmed, Anselmo's "slip", as he himself describes it, is inexcusable.

Even if the singer apologized after the incident.

In any case, it is important "to examine all areas of life - including art, culture and festivals - with an anti-fascist and post-colonial perspective."

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