With a right-wing past: Philipp Burger
Image: Jens Gyarmaty
Philipp Burger and his band Frei.Wild are causing discussions. In the interview he talks about patriotic songs, his past as a skinhead, social divisions and his desire for life.
Mr. Burger, there are a few blatant scenes in your recently published autobiography. For example, how, as a boy from South Tyrol, you punch an “Italian” in the face so hard that one of your fingers breaks. What was happening?
When I turn my thoughts back to that time, I see a football field in the schoolyard – and two groups of young, teenagers. They listen to aggressive music with Walkman headphones, sometimes in pairs. Some are Germany football fans, others are Italy fans. Some people only speak the South Tyrolean dialect at home, while others only speak Italian. Both groups use the stories told by parents and grandparents, as well as those of their brothers and friends, to show their dislike for the other group. The times of the so-called option, when South Tyrol became a pawn between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, left their mark, difficult times in which, for example, my grandfather's family had to fear that the farm would be expropriated by Mussolini's government and, for example, after to be deported to southern Italy. Each of the schoolyard boys saw themselves in the right pack, in the pack of superiors, with a big face – and their fists land where it hurts.
#Interview #Frei.Wild #singer #Philipp #Burger