German public broadcaster ZDF is under fire after canceling the planned live performance of an “anti-fascist” song in one of its popular comedy programs.
ZDF dropped plans to air “Keine Angst” (No Fear), the new song by rapper Danger Dan and classical musician Igor Levit, in its weekly current affairs satire show Die Anstalt. The network said the song, which calls for Germans to take action against the far right, could be interpreted as an “incitement to violence.”
Levit and Danger Dan, whose real name is Daniel Pongratz, were set to perform the song at a pre-recording of the show last week. After the network dropped them, they posted a video of the song to YouTube, where it has quickly gone viral, reaching the number one spot on YouTube Trends for music in Germany.
In the video for the song, short in stark black and white evoking the style of German expressionist films of the 1930s, Danger Dan sits at the piano and quickly rattles through a chorus of instructions for how to combat rising right-wing extremism in Germany.
Alongside fairly innocuous advice (“Talk to bars and pubs/ask if they have space available for an evening/for a party against the Nazis.”); the song also suggests “outing” the “nazi pigs” by putting up flyers and posters with the names, addresses and photos of far-right extremists. It ends with a suggestive, if ambiguous, call to action: “It’s obvious what needs to be done/ I won’t say anything more about it/ Best regards to Lina, Gucci, Maja, and Nanuk.”
The final line appears to be a reference to left-wing activists who have been either convicted of, or are on trial for, violent attacks against members of the far-right.
ZDF said the song’s text “could be read as an incitement to violence” and therefore violated the network’s program guidelines The network dropped Danger Dan and Levit from Die Anstalt.
The hosts of the show were not amused. Comedians Max Uthoff, Claus von Wagner and Maike Kühl called the network’s decision “cowardly.” In their program, which will air on Tuesday but is already available on the network’s streaming service, they devote several minutes to a discussion of the song’s controversial lyrics before arguing that ZDF should have let Levit and Danger Dan perform.
Posting on Instagram, the two musicians claimed ZDF was given the text to the song weeks before and that its legal team had already approved it, something the network disputes.
The German Journalists’ Association has called ZDF’s actions an infringement on editorial freedom at the channel. The network produced a 15-minute explanatory video, posted on its streaming platform on Saturday, outlying the controversy and the arguments for and against broadcasting “Keine Angst.”
The incident comes against the backdrop of growing support for Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that is currently leading national opinion polls and is expected to win September’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt. Many see the AfD as a threat to German democracy and have called for the party to be banned.
