In a statement, 17 authors announced that they would no longer use the magazine Concrete wanting to work together. The reason, they write, is the pro-Putin course of spending during the war of aggression against Ukraine. Among the signatories are the former editor-in-chief of the titanicLeo Fischer, the author Harald Nicolas Stazol, the sports journalist Alex Feuerherdt and the former Concrete-Culture editor Marit Hofmann.
The magazine was founded in 1957 and has been published monthly since 1974. “From the 1950s to the present day Concrete for the renunciation of war, the military, armaments, superstitions (including Christian ones) and ideology, exploitation, capitalism, Nazism, fascism, racism, anti-Semitism,” it says on the Concrete-Website. The list of authors is a “Who’s Who” of the political and literary intelligentsia of contemporary history. Actually had Concrete at the best of times it had well-known authors, it represented a left-wing, undogmatic position and also saw itself as a culture magazine.
With the editorial course on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, however, a red line was crossed among the 17 authors, you write. “We don’t want to and can’t continue to publish in a magazine that, on this issue, is close to the AfD, the ethnic wing of the Left Party or Jürgen Elsässer Compactissued by Henry Kissinger, Klaus von Dohnanyi or the lobby groups of German industry.”
The March title becomes “a piece of war propaganda”
They think the March title in particular, which appeared the day after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, should have marked a turning point. Concrete headlined “Go East! The NATO aggression against Russia”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/.”This stylization of Russia as an innocent victim, including ignoring the deployment of a hundred thousand soldiers on the border with Ukraine, would be terrible even then would have been had the invasion not taken place (or, more realistically, remained localized).” As a result of the Russian actions, the title, “whether willy-nilly or willy-nilly, has become even worse: a piece of war propaganda.”
Since then, most of the texts have “dutifully” distanced themselves from the war of aggression, which violates international law, it is said. But the authors find that the basic tendency of the reporting is too clear. The authors conclude that anyone who makes “against the West” the only decision-making criterion can take the liberty of brazenly and glorify barbarism as an act of resistance. “The critical organ then becomes a monthly one young world“https://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/.” We don’t write for them for good reason. Not for the copy either.”
the ConcreteThe editorial team initially did not comment on the statement when asked on Thursday.