We are more

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Visitors to the concert "We are more"
Logo We are more on Twitter

Under the motto We are more , a free concert took place in Chemnitz on September 3, 2018 in response to the riots in Chemnitz 2018 . The concert reached an estimated number of 65,000 people. As a result, the hashtag #wirsindmehr became popular for the event and some follow-up events took place. In addition, an alliance with this name was founded.

prehistory

On August 26, 2018, 35-year-old Daniel H. was stabbed to death on the sidelines of the Chemnitz city festival. A Syrian and an Iraqi were suspected of the crime. Fueled by reports in social networks, a demonstration registered by the Pro Chemnitz citizens' movement took place in Chemnitz on August 27, 2018 , in which around 6,000 people took part. There were xenophobic riots. On August 28, a “funeral march” organized by the AfD and Pegida took place in Chemnitz with around 4500 participants, as well as a counter-demonstration with around 3000 participants.

The concert

In order to correct the impression that the mood in Chemnitz was "tilted" in favor of the AfD and its supporters, a concert was organized at short notice in Chemnitz, which was designed as a counter-demonstration and under the motto "We are more". The concert was organized by the Chemnitz band Kraftklub with the support of Chemnitz city ​​marketing . The original venue had to be relocated due to great demand. It took place in a large parking lot in front of the Johanniskirche . A second stage for DJs was set up at the Karl Marx Monument and information and food stands were set up in the Stadthallenpark. The crime scene where Daniel H. died was between the two locations of the event. The concert area was within walking distance of the main train station .

65,000 people attended the event. Artists such as Die Toten Hosen , Casper , Feine Sahne Fischfilet , KIZ , Marteria , Nura and Trettmann performed at the concert . The concert went off peacefully and smoothly.

Complete line-up

After the final appearance of the Toten Hosen, all the artists entered the stage and sang the classic You'll Never Walk Alone from the musical Carousel , which later became the football anthem.

A live stream could be seen on YouTube . The concert was also broadcast on radio by EinsLive , MDR Sputnik , Deutschlandfunk Nova , N-Joy , You FM , Fritz , UnserDing , Dasding , Bremen Next and Puls . 3sat broadcast the event on television .

Criticism and Reviews

Kai Butterweck criticized on n-tv that only "the usual suspects" had appeared at the Chemnitz concert. The “almost complete German pop squad”, on the other hand, has so far remained silent about the events in Chemnitz. "Instead of breathlessly , the creme de la creme of the German mainstream rock and pop landscape prefers to do nothing through the night - and not for the first time." However, Helene Fischer acknowledged #wirsindmehr on her Facebook page and via Instagram and at her concert in Berlin on September 4, 2018, she called on her audience to stand up and take a stand "against violence, against xenophobia". She also repeated the motto in the ZDF television program Die Helene Fischer Show, which was broadcast on December 25, 2018 .

In an article entitled We are less titled, Volker Weidermann in the print edition of September 8, 2018 of Der Spiegel , doubted that the slogan would come after the "emergency aid" through "the great concert of the artists who came to Germany" and the waning media interest in the events in Chemnitz "We are more" will prove to be right. Weidermann relied on the insights of the 24-year-old author Lukas Rietzschel , who had dealt with right-wing extremism in Saxony for years and also dealt with it in his 2018 novel Striking the world with a fist .

Rietzschel also criticized in an interview with Deutschlandfunk that the large number of those who came to the aid of the democrats in Saxony concealed the fact that before the concert “the ratio of right-wing extremists to those who took to the streets against it was almost 5: 1 in favor of the right ”. The “silent majority in Saxony” is “still there”. But she “has at the same time become more stoic” and “no longer has this presence” [as in previous years]. Nevertheless, Rietzschel hopes that " Generation Y ", i. H. those born and raised in the Berlin republic could counter the “now it's enough” of the right across Germany with “now it's enough” of the democrats. The real interest of artists like Campino in local and regional protest groups on September 3, 2018 is an indication that this hope is well founded.

Christoph Ernst compared the event in the magazine Cicero with the Festival of Political Songs and spoke of a "moral greed for masturbation of all those who like to take the side of the supposedly good with a click of the mouse". Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was criticized, among others, by the then CDU General Secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer for spreading a call for a concert. The background to this was the appearance of the band Feine Sahne Fischfilet, which was observed for a while by the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Office for the Protection of the Constitution because of alleged left-wing extremist activities .

In the picture , the appearance of KIZ in particular was criticized, quoting a line of text from the song A Monkey and a Horse , which refers to Eva Herman , and another line of text against Thilo Sarrazin taken out of context.

According to an evaluation by the microblogging service Twitter , #WirSindMehr was the most-used debates hashtag of 2018. In the poll for the word of the year in Germany, the sentence landed in fourth place.

According to the Leipziger Volkszeitung, the concert was classified in the Saxon Constitutional Protection Report 2019 as evidence of alliances of non-extremists and left-wing extremists. The protection of the constitution justified this with “ Alerta, alerta antifascista ” calls, the performance of the band Feine Sahne Fischfilet and thanks from the band KIZ to the Black Block and the Chemnitz Antifa. The mention aroused a broad lack of understanding in social media as well as in the public. The AfD, on the other hand, felt that the mention confirmed their view that left-wing extremism in Saxony was a serious and unsolved problem. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Saxony defended itself in a counter-statement and called the claim of the Leipziger Volkszeitung “in this generality incorrect”. Rather, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution wanted to demonstrate that the “major event in Chemnitz with its issues worth supporting was used in individual cases for extremist agitation”.

Other concerts and events

In Chemnitz

On July 4, 2019, a “Kosmos Festival” in the tradition of the concert We are more took place in Chemnitz under the name “we stay more”. Approx. 50,000 visitors listened to the artists from Tocotronic , Alligatoah , Felix Kummer (singer of the band Kraftklub) and Herbert Grönemeyer . Sören Uhle, one of the organizers of the festival, commented on the event with the words: “We are more than a concert. We want to continue #wirsindmore. We promote an open society. "

Political scientist Eckhard Jesse welcomes the fact that the event in July 2019 will not only speak out “against the right” but also expressly in favor of cosmopolitanism and democracy. Everything has to be done to ensure that the state elections in East Germany, including Chemnitz , in autumn 2019, prove the truth of the concert motto.

Outside of Chemnitz

We are more in Fulda

On October 1, 2018, a demonstration and rally against racism and right-wing populism took place under the motto We are more in Fulda , to which more than 50 organizers had called. Around 1000 participants took part in the campaign. Among the artists involved were Hans Söllner , Microphone Mafia and Bengio . The speakers were Ralf Stegner (SPD), Jan Schalauske (Die Linke), Stefanie Rentsch ( German Evangelical Church Congress ), Sandro Witt ( DGB Hessen-Thuringia ), Judith Amler ( Attac ), Heiko Leimbach (former district spokesman for the AfD) and Jürgen Kasek ( Bündnis90 / Die Grünen Sachsen ). The reason for the protest was a demo against an election campaign event of the AfD in Neuhof .

Web links

Commons : Wir Sind Mehr - Concert in Chemnitz 2018  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : We are more Fulda 2018  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christopher Chirvi: #wirsindmehr: That is also Chemnitz: More than 65,000 people attend a concert against the right | shz.de. Retrieved April 20, 2020 .
  2. ↑ The police officers have to run off in groups again and again. In: The world . Retrieved September 1, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Free concert in Chemnitz postponed. In: Der Tagesspiegel . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  4. ↑ 65,000 at concert against the right. tagesschau.de, September 3, 2018.
  5. ↑ #wirsindmehr - Chemnitz on YouTube . 3rd September 2018.
  6. ↑ a b Tanja Banner, Sonja Thomaser: #Wirsindmehr in Chemnitz: “People who oppose fascists, don't criminalize!” In: Frankfurter Rundschau . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  7. ↑ All information about the “We are more” concert in Chemnitz. In: RP online . September 3, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Kai Butterweck: "We are more" in Chemnitz: Inactive through the night. n-tv.de, September 3, 2018.
  9. ↑ Arno Frank: Helene Fischer and #wirsindmehr: Sorry. And thank you. In: Spiegel Online , September 5, 2018.
  10. ↑ "We are more": This is how the Helene Fischer Christmas show is! In: Day24 . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Volker Weidermann: We are less . In: Der Spiegel . Issue 37/2018. September 8, 2018, p. 120 ff.
  12. ^ Author Lukas Rietzschel zu Chemnitz: "Saxony has a structural problem with right-wing extremism". deutschlandfunkkultur.de, August 28, 2018.
  13. ↑ Lukas Rietzschel: Generation Y - Chemnitz: Solidarity, finally! In: Zeit Campus , September 16, 2018.
  14. ↑ Christoph Ernst: The moral majority. In: Cicero , September 7, 2018.
  15. ↑ Leandra Kubiak: Federal President under fire - who is actually the band “Feine Sahne Fischfilet”? In: New Westphalian . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Against violence and agitation: Next concert in Chemnitz - with these bands. September 8, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019 .
  17. ↑ #WeSindMore was the most popular debate hashtag. In: Spiegel Online , December 5, 2018.
  18. ↑ Neither “anchor center” nor “we are more”: That is the word of the year. In: Spotniknews. December 14, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Andreas Debski: Sächsischer Verfassungsschutz mentions # wirsindmehr concert as a left-wing extremist. In: LVZ.de. Retrieved May 15, 2019 .
  20. ^ "We are more" concert in Chemnitz was not left-wing extremist. In: State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony. Retrieved May 15, 2019 .
  21. ↑ "We stay more" - Chemnitz celebrates the cosmopolitan society with the Kosmos Festival . Mirror online. 4th July 2019
  22. ↑ # we remain more: “You want to do a lot for democracy” . WDR 5 . 4th July 2019
  23. ↑ "We are more" - demo against AfD with a cultural program on Uniplatz - picture series. October 1, 2018, accessed January 2, 2019 .