Christa Jenal

Christa Jenal (* 1954 ) is a German teacher . She teaches English and history at the Helmholtz Gymnasium in Zweibrücken . She was a member of the party The Greens and chairwoman of the Association for Peace Education in Saarland e. V. notoriety she gained through their involvement against right-wing extremist and violent tendencies in pop and rock music.

Act

She gained national and international attention through her actions against the glorification of violence in the music scene. The bands that were interested in this included Die Fantastischen Vier . In 1992 she appeared on the talk show Einsprung , to which Störkraft and Rio Reiser were invited. However, from the beginning of the 1990s, their actions focused on bands and record labels from the genres of death metal and black metal , such as Impaled Nazarene and Morbid Records .

She also speaks out against right-wing extremism in music. In 1997 she filed charges against the owner of the right-wing extremist distribution company Rock-O-Rama for sedition after a student pointed out his mail order catalog for right-wing bands. In 1998 she reported the operator of a website that contained self-portraits by NSBM bands such as Absurd .

She also appeared in proceedings before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (OLG) in 1996. In an open letter written in 1994 with Scientology affiliate Jeannette Schweitzer, she described the artist Gottfried Helnwein as an “advertising medium for a criminal organization” , "Who advertises Scientology in innumerable publications". After the first instance had forbidden these statements, Jenal got the right before the OLG.

She was involved as a spokesperson for the citizens' initiative against the Museum Monster against the construction of the Saarland Museum belonging Contemporary in Saarbrücken .

Controversy with the rock hard

In 1993, after the murder of a teenage heavy metal fan in Hoyerswerda and the murder of Sondershausen who described Jenal in an article taz the Rock Hard "destructive, as the mouthpiece of a fascist - racist youth movement". Bands such as the politically left-wing Napalm Death were also called fascistoid , as were the Obituary, who were considered apolitical . After a conversation with the magazine, Jenal's motifs were described as entirely honorable, but only an open letter from the editorial team ended the controversy.

Jenal vs. Cannibal Corpse

In 1994 Jenal became aware of the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse and their releases Butchered at Birth and The Bleeding . On her initiative, Butchered at Birth was added to the index by the BPjM . The band's record label responded in 1995 by replacing the record covers of all Cannibal Corpse releases with less obnoxious motifs and by no longer printing any texts. At one of the band's concerts, however, Jenal discovered that the indexed tracks were still being played live, and obtained bans on playing individual songs. After bassist Alex Webster admitted in an interview that he was circumventing these prohibitions by playing the songs but not announcing them, Jenal filed a criminal complaint against him. For different locations of the 1995 Europe - tour performance bans were obtains and for the performances in Essen and Munich imposed the condition that only 18-year-old persons may attend the performances:

“In the long run, however, Cannibal Corpse can't get a tour off the ground with the shit they've made over the years. I will definitely prevent that. "

- Christa Jenal

As a result, the 1995 album Vile was released in two versions by the record company, the cover was only defused for the German market. Jenal was personally threatened for acting against the band Cannibal Corpse. After she publicly called for a concert by the band in Völklingen to be banned in 1994 , she faced weeks of threatening phone calls and even death threats over the phone. In fact, Jenal achieved the opposite of its set goal. Through her longstanding conflict with the band, which she also led in television appearances, she made them known to a wider audience.

In 2019 Jenal mobilized again against the band and wrote an open letter to the mayors of various cities in which Cannibal Corpse perform, including Bremen's Mayor Carsten Sieling .

Jenal vs. Moonspell

In the run-up to the release of the album Sin / Pecado by the Portuguese metal band Moonspell , Jenal took action in 1998 against the song Opium , which had already been released in 1996 , because it glorified and advocated drug use and called for the "uninhibited use of drugs". As a result, the offices of the Century Media record company were searched and Moonspell singer Fernando Ribeiro wrote an open letter to Jenal, in which he indicated that the song was dedicated to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and that Opium did not contain any shocking lyrics , nor the music video on it had shocking content.

Impaled Nazarene

In 2006 Christa Jenal submitted an application for the Impaled Nazarene albums Latex Cult and Nihil to be indexed at the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People . However, only Nihil was added to the list of indexed carrier media on January 31, 2007.

criticism

Jenal's actions are controversial and meet with rejection from music fans as well as music journalists and record companies. In 2001 she took part in a panel discussion at popkomm with musicians from Pungent Stench and Knorkator on the subject of bad lyrics, bad songs: Where is the moral limit? . The taz then indirectly referred to her as a “Christian-influenced moral protector”, Alex Wank from Pungent Stench referred to Jenal as “a person who loves self-expression” and accused her of wanting to be the center of attention.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oliver Schroem: The offensive of the Nazi rockers. In: Die Zeit , No. 47/1997.
2. ↑ Thilo Thielke: Ghosts of the past . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1998 ( online ).
3. ↑ Helnwein is defeated in court. OLG Frankfurt: The artist can be called a Scientologist . In: The Rhine Palatinate . June 21, 1996.
4. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung : Museum 4th pavilion extension opening: Finally peace! And just great joy. Retrieved July 4, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Holger Stratmann: Chronicle of madness . In: Rock Hard . No. 200 .
6. ↑ Philip Akoto: Dangerous music and how we deal with it in Germany. (No longer available online.) Zensur.org, archived from the original on September 30, 2009 ; Retrieved September 20, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ^ Klaus Miehling : Violent Music, Violent Music: Popular Music and the Consequences . Königshausen & Neumann, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8260-3394-0 , p. 234 .
8. ↑ Holger Stratmann: Metal in TV - Column, in: Rockhard.de , viewed at: Weblink ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 6, 2012) 
9. ↑ Cannibal Corpse plays in Bremen - teacher Christa Jenal has a problem with that. In: Kreiszeitung.de. July 1, 2019, accessed July 4, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Michael Kuhlen: The Fall of Sin or Christa Jenal in an opium intoxication? Breakout Online, accessed September 20, 2009 . 
11. ↑ Impaled Nazarene - On the Index. (No longer available online.) Metalnews.de, archived from the original on December 3, 2013 ; Retrieved January 21, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ BAnz. No. 21 of January 31, 2007
13. ↑ Christoph Scheuring: Guitars for plowshares . In: Spiegel special , No. 2/1994.
14. ↑ Gerrit Bartels, Jenni Zylka: timbres for consumption patterns. In: taz , August 20, 2001.
15. ↑ Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Pfaffen, hear the signals! In: Rock Hard . No. 176 .