Press
The police are now investigating racist chants at the barn party at the Petersdorf Rapeseed Festival on Fehmarn. A meeting is planned to clarify the matter.
Fehmarn – Across the country, more and more incidents are being reported in which the song “L’amour toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino is being slurred with racist slogans. As has become known, there was a very similar incident at the barn party with around 350 people at the Petersdorf rapeseed blossom festival – including video recordings of the evening circulating on the Internet.
“I thought, that can’t be true.” Christa Höpner was shocked. What happened on the night of May 4th to 5th in Lange’s Barn during the party night at the Rapeseed Flower Festival has not left her alone since. On May 7th, the SPD politician addressed the incident in the non-public part of the city council. “Several of the guests are said to have loudly chanted ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’ along to a song. I find this kind of behavior inappropriate, disrespectful and anti-democratic.”
Organizer should have ended barn festival immediately after racism incident on Fehmarn
In her opinion, the organizer (event manager) should have turned on the lights, turned off the music and ended the event at this point, she said. “This did not happen,” said the city representative, appealing to the group to “take this incident seriously.” Especially since it was not “some kind of basement party in a private setting.”
Referred to the tourism committee on May 16, she again raised her concerns there after she had only been met with silence at the city council meeting. She received assurances from tourism director Oliver Behncke that the matter would be dealt with accordingly.
This is also what Christa Höpner assumes, who in her day-to-day life never tires of appealing to the understanding of democracy and making it clear: “We don’t want that. We have completely different values and a completely different understanding of democracy and coexistence.” She reported the incident to the police by email against an unknown person, she told the Fehmarnsches Tageblatt on Wednesday, May 29.
Tourism Director Oliver Behncke invites those responsible for the party to a table
Fehmarn’s tourism director Oliver Behncke, who speaks of an “unacceptable situation” in connection with the racist chants at the barn party, is bringing together organizers, event managers and event management from the Fehmarn Tourism Service, which financially supports the Petersdorf Rapeseed Festival, for a meeting on Thursday. He wants to first get an overview of what happened that night and clarify how municipal events and those of the Fehmarn Tourism Service, which is a company owned by the town of Fehmarn, intend to deal with such situations in the future. Turn off the music immediately as soon as songs appear that spread racist and anti-democratic content, exercise house rules and expel party guests who act in this way from the venue and file a complaint.
I am ashamed of the island that something like this has happened here.
“We are taking this issue seriously and will not let it fizzle out,” says Oliver Behncke, who wants to make the new procedure mandatory in the statutes, the contractual agreements for future events. “It’s surreal that the issue has now reached Fehmarn,” says Behncke, describing his impression when he first heard about the incident. “I am ashamed of the island that something like this has come up here,” says tourism director Oliver Behncke. And it is also bitter for those who organized the festival with great love and on a voluntary basis.
Marion Schmidt, 1st chairwoman of the organizing Westfehmarn Tourist Association, who will also take part in the discussion on Thursday to examine the events during the Rapeseed Blossom Festival, was only interested in a brief quote: “I was not involved in any way, nobody informed me,” she said on Wednesday when asked by the Fehmarschen Tageblatt.
“I am ashamed that something like this happens in Germany and I am even more ashamed when something like this happens on Fehmarn,” said Fehmarn’s mayor Jörg Weber. His reaction to the events in Petersdorf: “zero tolerance.” Weber, who has other commitments today and cannot attend the meeting, supports the approach suggested by Behncke.
Oliver Behncke on racism incident on Fehmarn: “We must take action against it.”
“We must take action against this. This is not a minor offense or a youthful sin. We must not be too casual about it and must not allow such incidents to become socially acceptable,” said Weber, who felt extremely uncomfortable about the racist outburst in the party barn: Not only because friends from the partner communities of Neringa and Orth an der Donau also took part in the Petersdorf rapeseed blossom festival.
Organizer Remling firmly denied a rumor that the DJ only played the controversial song after some guests had already started singing the chorus: “It was the other way around. But it is also a fact that numerous party guests came to the DJ and asked for the song with a grin.” Remling is glad that DJ Leon did not follow through on this.
Anyone who has to be so stupid as to chant this nonsense, i.e. right-wing slogans, at me will be thrown out immediately.
David Remling also feels sorry for the DJ in the current situation: “I think the whole thing is bad for the artist too. He was just doing his job and is now the center of attention. He didn’t actually do anything wrong. When we were dismantling the venue the following day, we reflected on the incident again and took a stand on social media. The song is now banned from our premises. It is forbidden at any of our events. We have decided to approach the matter with a zero-tolerance policy and not to play the song anymore.
Meanwhile, Arne Hansen, owner of the “Rapa Bar”, does not want to ban the song at his events, but makes it clear: “Anyone who has to be stupid enough to chant this nonsense, i.e. right-wing slogans, at my event will be thrown out immediately.” Hansen gives his DJs the freedom to play the song or not. The topic is currently in the spotlight, and rightly so, Hansen believes. “The topic is important and unfortunately also shows that we are not talking about a fringe phenomenon here. It is too widespread for that.” Bar owner Hansen finds it particularly unfortunate that inhibitions have fallen sharply when it comes to such ideas.
Police investigate and seek witnesses to the rapeseed blossom festival
It is by no means the first incident of this kind nationwide. The content network “funk” from ARD and ZDF has identified at least 30 cases – since October – in which mostly teenagers and young people shouted racist slogans to the party hit by Gigi D’Agostino. There were also media reports from Güby, Pahlen, Hamburg, Schenefeld, Erlangen, Jiedlit and Rotenburg an der Fulda. After the incident on Sylt, videos against such incidents have now gone viral.
The police are currently investigating and are asking for information. The State Security Department of the Lübeck District Criminal Investigation Department has begun investigations, among other things on suspicion of incitement, according to Ulli Fritz Gerlach, press spokesman for the Lübeck Police Department. The criminal investigation department is looking for “witnesses who observed guests during the celebrations of the Rapeseed Blossom Festival on Fehmarn who may have sung anti-constitutional slogans or expressed them in other ways,” said Gerlach. The State Security Department in Lübeck is accepting information about suspected persons, pictures, video and audio recordings of the crime on 04511310.
#Nazi #chants #Fehmarn