About the song Deutschland (2019) by the band Rammstein
Содержание
On the evening of 28 March 2019, German band Rammstein posted a video for the song "Deutschland" online. In the clip, the band offers its vision of German history: the Knights, National Socialism, the Holocaust, and the USSR. The contrast of the characters of the main characters makes you think...
The new permissive marks...
German hard rock band Rammstein created an unprecedented hype around their new music video, released on 28 March. In the video, the band members appeared dressed as concentration camp inmates, with nooses around their necks. The move sparked a wave of protests from politicians, historians and Jewish communities. Critics accused the famous musicians of a cynical publicity stunt. Allegedly, the team decided to play with the images of Nazis to attract media attention and to create additional excitement around their new musical creation.
In fact, this is not the first time the band has used grim, militant imagery for their music videos. The 1998 video included excerpts from director Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film Olympia.
Here's what Charlotte Knobloch, former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has to say about the new video:
"In a new video, the group has crossed the last line of permissibility. Irresponsibility is shown in the trivialisation of the Holocaust. Rammstein uses the fact of the suffering and murder of millions of people for entertainment purposes in the most frivolous and repulsive way."
The iconic German rock band, founded in 1994, has become famous for their grinding guitar riffs, obscene antics and edge-of-your-seat theatrical productions with huge amounts of pyrotechnics. Their songs are based on gruesome subjects, from cannibalism to necrophilia, and the band's name itself recalls the terrible Ramstein plane crash in 1988, which killed 70 people and seriously injured more than 1000.
In an interview in 2006, Scandal frontman Till Lindemann was asked if the band would use Nazi themes again, to which the answer followed:
"No. Because I'm fed up with accusations that our group is right-wing."
In the new video, however, the crew members are dressed in black-and-white striped concentration camp robes and appear to be shown as they await their execution by hanging. Lindemann shines a light into the camera with his face bleeding from a cut, while 54-year-old guitarist Paul Landers' robe shows a Star of David. At the end, the big letters that make up the song title "Deutschland" appear.
Reaction to the clip
A number of politicians expressed anger and disgust at the video, with Jewish historian Michael Wolfson calling it "a new form of desecration of the dead." Germany's anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein said it was, quote, "a tasteless exploitation of artistic freedom that represents an absolute violation of the red line."
A year ago, a lyric by two German rappers, Farid Bang and Kollegah, which included the line that their bodies were "more defined than the prisoners of Auschwitz," sparked anger. The scandal sparked huge rallies calling for solidarity with Jews in Berlin and other cities.
