Barking up the Wrong Tree as an Art Form

Yesterday, there had been elections in the East German state of Sachsen-Anhalt. I take that opportunity to memorise an event that happened some weeks ago and a story of stunning hypocrisy.

German Neo-Nazis quash left-wing musician's show
Thu Mar 9, 2006 7:50 PM ET

To cut a long story short, members of the right wing party NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) in Sachsen-Anhalt had successfully blocked by legal means, namely by filing a protest with the authorities, a benefit concert by left-wing singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker.

Wecker, a political activist singer/songmaker, score composer and occasional actor, had planned to perform on March 8 at the premises of a school in the town of Halberstadt. The performance was supposed to be part of Wecker's "Nazis Get Out of Town!" tour, a non-profit series of concerts the musician has organized across East Germany in response to the recent upswing in neo-Nazi activities there.

The NPD had threatened to disrupt the Halberstadt concert if it went ahead and accused Wecker of using the school concert as a front for political campaigning on behalf of Germany's radical left Party Die Linke.

Town authorities then refused to grant Wecker a permit to perform at the intended premises, arguing the concert was an illegal commercial venture in a public schoolroom because Wecker charges EURO 10.00 (US$ 12.00) for a ticket to this tour to cover operating costs but performs for free.

Germany's Jewish community condemned the decision. 'It is a declaration of (moral) bankruptcy by Germany's political parties in the face of right-wing extremism,' said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews, Germany's largest Jewish organization. "This makes a mockery of all such initiatives in civil society and the efforts of Konstantin Wecker to fight discrimination and xenophobia, the very things the NPD stands for,' Kramer added. 'The next politician who calls for a 'revolution of decency' (against right-wing violence), should first take a good look in the mirror.'

Sounds like one of those Good versus Evil stories, doesn't it? The idealistic artist against the forces of Evil, right?

It ain't quite so.

Who is Konstantin Wecker? Konstantin Wecker was born 1947 in Munich. He dropped out of university after four years in 1970 and continued to perform his music while working at odd jobs, from selling insurance to "starring" in pornographic films. One of his first coming-outs as a songwriter was at Munich's popular political cabaret "Münchner Lach- und Schießgesellschaft" in 1973. His breakthrough as a singer came in 1977 with the LP Genug ist nicht genug (Enough Is Not Enough), which includes Willy, a song about a man who was slain by drunken Nazis, and which became, somewhat predictably, hugely popular in a Germany whose resistance against the Nazi regime grows proportionally to the time span since May 8, 1945.

In 1996, Wecker was sentenced to two and a half years in prison without probation on charges of cocaine possession. He had acquired large amounts of "coke" over the past year which he had refined to crack. According to the public prosecutor, he was charged with a total of 1770g of cocaine. The Public Prosecution accused him of submitting his colleagues as well to the danger of drug addiction and pleaded for a three and a half years sentence. His lawyers pleaded for two years on probation. The judge sentenced him to two years and six months without probation.*

After 9/11 this paragon of virtue joined the America-bashing road show of terrorist-sympathisers. Writers, politicians, artists and intellectuals of all sorts fell over their own feet to slam, while the debris at Ground Zero was literally still smoking, not the terrorists but the US of A. The speediest one was the renegade Catholic theologian (an occupation, that will always grant the apostate a sinecure for life while he can safely cultivate his image as a rebel and martyr) Eugen Drewermann. Not later than on the evening of 9/11, he drivelled about 'embargo politics against the Iraq' on his radio show and in a bout of mental incontinence let 'Hiroshima' slip. Adrienne Goehler, Berlin's Green-"Alternative" feminist Minister for Culture revealed a slightly different agenda and found that the Twin Towers reminded her of 'phallic symbols', which is, of course, reason enough to flatten them. The renowned historian Wolfgang Benz, professor of antisemitism-research at the Technical University Berlin, termed the WTC an 'expression of arrogance', which, by implication, made the terrorist attack somewhat understandable. A chat show host who is world famous in Germany, Roger Willemsen, as vain as a bulimic teenage girl and as hollow (although not as handsome) as a Ming vase, equalled the ethics of George W. Bush to those of Osama bin Laden and waffled about the (I kid you not) 'sublimeness' of the devastation. Couturier Wolfgang Joop, who can't get over his past as a heterosexual male, saw the roots of the attack in the conflict between Israel and 'Palestine' and, again I kid you not, the 'humiliated masculinity' of the Arab male. Nobel Laureate Günter Grass, who can't get over his past as a Flakhelfer, joined the fray by comparing the relatively few victims of 9/11 to the deaths in Rwanda and Bosnia and told the Americans to get over it.**

This, dear reader, is the political climate you ought to understand before we get back to Konstantin Wecker.

In 2003, the musician took a 'peace trip' to Baghdad, which his critics snidely called a publicity stunt. 'In the event of war with Iraq, the German government ought to close down all overflights of U.S. military planes,' he told a Munich newspaper.

Mind you, neither Wecker nor his fellow freak show exhibits uttered as much as a beep when Bubba Saddam Dearest massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people over the years.

Wecker's oeuvre is full of good deeds. Together with the Jewish singer Avitall he produced a CD, which is – are we amazed? – about fighting antisemitism. That the takings from the CD are going to support the work of hagalil, the self-declared 'biggest Jewish online-magazine in Europe' can be seen as symptomatic. hagalil (with somewhat shady credentials regarding their Jewish roots) support the Israeli Left and are avid publishers of Uri Avnery, "peace activist", supporter of Al Fatah, now of Hamas, and useful idiot mouthpiece for the European Left who let him state the anti-Israel positions they don't – yet and just – dare to state themselves.

What else does our philanthropist do? Look at the Gesellschaft Kultur des Friedens (something like: Association Culture of Peace) with such glorious and dignified pitches like Friedensketten (peace necklaces).

Wecker and wifey wearing Friendensketten

Another leading activist for Kultur des Friedens is, nota bene, Mikis Theodorakis. Yes, that would be THE Mikis Theodorakis, the eminent Greek composer, political activist and political icon, who stated in a speech in November 2003 that "this small nation [i.e. the Jews] is the root of evil, not of good" and nobody in the audience (which included high officials of the Greek government) objected. As far as I remember not many did object AT ALL ANYWHERE, which shows that Kultur des Friedens is neither about culture nor peace but about something quite different.

Then, there is, again, Uri Avnery, ubiquitous at each and every opportunity for a cheap shot at Israel, even if it means to make an ass of himself by posing in children's, no… let me re-phrase that: by posing in CRAPPY children's stuff.

However, the acclaim Wecker's visit to Baghdad triggered with his fellow countrymen encouraged him to jump on the gravy train of the anti-American and anti-'Zionist'/antisemitic blogosphere with a blog called Hinter den Schlagzeilen (Behind the Headlines).

Not too surprisingly, it doesn't contain even a single own thought, just links to the usual suspects from the anti-American and anti-Zionist/antisemitic fraternity, such as the still-going-strong mouthpieces of the ruling party of the former German Democratic Republic, SED, namely Neues Deutschland and Junge Welt, or the notorious antisemitic Heise/telepolis online magazine, the Al Guardian or (now this would be funny if it weren't so sad!) the Friedensforum Duisburg.

I am seriously trying not to let my personal physical aversion against that man get into the way of the facts, because I always wanted to take a shower after I had zapped into one of his sweaty, slushy, well-nigh orgasmic performances on TV - while I was still watching TV.

His carefully stylised image as a zaftig, sensuous yet sensitive male goes down well with women of both sexes. And of course, it's so easy to forgive such a mentsch his worldly sins, isn't it?

I think Wecker is too dumb to understand his own cynicism, namely to decry "antisemitism" and "Nazis", yet to actively support another genocide of Jews by helping the cause of their enemies under the pretence of "peace" activism. I think he is too dumb, too, to understand the cynicism of another part of his performance, namely to decry "Nazism" when he is actively supporting a party that is the direct successor of the ruling party of another German dictatorship. After all, we can't really expect that a singer/songwriter of mediocre talent, who has probably blown out two of his former three brain cells by drug abuse, will know any better than our Nobel Laureate Günter Grass who – notabene – called the former Communist German Democratic Republic a 'comfortable dictatorship' ('kommode Diktatur'), can we?

Not that Wecker is particularly interesting himself. What IS interesting, however, is how he, as well as countless other mediocrities, could become the idol of a society whose values he mirrors to a "T". The German who LOVES Jews – as soon as they are well and truly dead or at least suicidal. The German without the slightest moral or ethical compass beyond decrying "violence", whatever that may imply. The hypocrite barking up the wrong tree of "Right wing extremism" while falling over his own feet backing an ideology just as nasty and selling himself as a philanthropist and do-gooder in the process.

Talking about barking up the wrong tree: the right-wing DVU, "partner" of and substitute for the NPD in the Sachsen-Anhalt elections yesterday, won 3.4% of the votes, the left-wing party Die Linke won 24.1% and ended up second behind the Christian Democrats.

Thank you for your valiant fight for democracy, Konstantin!

By the way, Germany has got a 5%-clause for the Bundestag and the state parliaments, banning all parties with a result less that 5% from entry, which lets our crusader's efforts appear even more phoney.

Just another remark: When will the obviously unteachable Jews of Germany AT LAST BEGIN to see who their enemy is, or better: where the danger for them REALLY lies? Certainly not with 3.4%-strong right-wing-extremism. But they are so pathetically grateful for everybody who does not promise to send them to the gas chambers that they will lap up any bullshit, even if it is coming from a Konstantin Wecker.

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* For the biographical stuff, I relied on Konstantin Wecker: A Voice of Passion, a sycophantic fan-page, whose makers obviously don't realise that their information might, in the eyes of some people, tar their hero with a somewhat dusty brush.

** To be honest, I didn't listen to or viewed all that nauseating stuff myself. That did Henryk M. Broder who summarised it in his brilliant account of the German reaction to 9/11 Kein Krieg, nirgends. Sadly, there is no English translation so far.

Postscriptum: It wasn't just his past as a Flakhelfer, but that as an SS-man over which our Nobel-laureate couldn't get, but that expired only later and reveals yet another agenda.