In Saxony, Die Partei is advertising with an election campaign ad in which a man shoots AfD voters. This is not only tasteless, it is extremely dangerous.
If you are reading this comment, I have fallen into the trap. I have jumped over the stick that the Saxon branch of the satirical party Die Partei has held out to the public.
I’ll do it anyway. Because the campaign ad that Die Partei produced is extremely dangerous. Maybe even life-threatening.
Hunt for AfD voters
It’s about the radio spot “The Seizure of Power”. In it, a Saxon couple hears the fictitious news on the radio that the new AfD Prime Minister has been sworn in. The man then asks his wife to get the gun from the basement. She initially refuses, but then brings it anyway. He shoots passers-by from the window with increasing arbitrariness, whom he assumes to be AfD voters. You can hear the screams of the victims and his cynical comments before the story is resolved by a speaker with the words: “Before it’s too late, vote for the party.”
This is not the first time that Die Partei has played with such taboos. For years, it has been using posters in election campaigns that read “Kill Nazis” and “A Nazi could hang here”. These too caused a stir and lawsuits that were rejected by various courts with reference to freedom of art and freedom of expression.
Court: Saxon is satire
The Leipzig Administrative Court has now made a similar ruling. MDR had refused to broadcast the advert and argued in court that it was an incitement to commit a crime and a disturbance of the public peace.
The judges saw it differently. The ad was clearly identifiable as satire. The Saxon Higher Administrative Court confirmed the verdict, pointing out, among other things, that the satire could be recognized by the “exaggerated dialect of the speakers.”
The couple speaks Saxon.
This satire was banned
Anyone who discusses satire quickly ends up with the journalist Kurt Tucholsky, who was persecuted by the Nazis. According to him, there should be no limits to satire in a constitutional state: “What is satire allowed to do? Everything.”
But this statement dates back to 1919, so it was written in a completely different historical context. Today, satire is banned if it uses artificial intelligence to spread a deep fake video of Olaf Scholz, which viewers could believe to be real (Berlin Regional Court). It is banned if it comes across as a defamatory poem by a TV satirist with “defamatory” statements about a foreign head of state (Hamburg Regional Court in the case of Jan Böhmermann versus Erdoğan).
Why is it not banned even if it glorifies violence and it cannot be ruled out that it could endanger human lives?
As in the case of the Die Partei radio ad. Unlike blasphemous parodies, this is not about putting up with something that violates religious feelings or social conventions. Rather, the ad pushes another delicate boundary. A real and serious event (state elections) is used to call for physical violence against people. In the confidence that the recipients will classify it as it is intended: satirical.
But how does Die Partei intend to prevent one of its supporters from feeling encouraged by the ad to express their dislike of AfD voters violently, when the ad seems to legitimize this?
Of course, the party of jokers and its representatives don’t care. Founder Martin Sonneborn has often displayed his penchant for contempt for humanity under the guise of provocation, for example when he publicly called CDU MEP Dennis Radtke a “rat” in the best schoolyard bully manner in reference to his last name, or when he filled the list of his European candidates in 2019 with people whose names were similar to Nazi bigwigs (Göbbels/Speer).
He and his colleagues should not be indifferent to the fact that with their campaign ad they are making the bed for those they are supposedly fighting against: AfD voters. They were already busy ranting against MDR on social networks because it broadcast the ad.
One in three AfD voters justifies violence against politicians
A new survey by the “Tagesspiegel” newspaper has shown that more than one in three AfD voters justifies violence against politicians. Quite a few of them are likely to use the ad as a template to portray themselves as victims and thus legitimize scenarios of potential resistance.
Good satire exposes structures. And it bites upwards. Sonneborn was able to do that once. For example, when he showed up at a book reading by Björn Höcke disguised as a Hitler assassin. Or when he “grilled” the designated EU Digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger with questions about his political past.
But this has long since given way to the impression that he and his colleagues are only interested in celebrating themselves and attracting attention.
The party will not make it into the state parliament; in the last election in Saxony it received 1.6 percent. All that will remain of it is the damage it causes with irresponsible actions such as this one.