“My friends at school called me the moralist”
Sarah-Lee Heinrich, new federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth
Source: dpa / Bodo Schackow
Sarah-Lee Heinrich received nasty death threats after being elected spokeswoman for the Green Youth. In an interview, she emphasizes that she regrets her old tweets – and answers the criticism from author Elke Heidenreich.
D.he new federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth, Sarah-Lee Heinrich, spoke on Thursday in an interview with “Time online“About the death threats she has received since she was elected on Saturday.
Tweets and statements from Heinrich, which she published or uttered around the age of 14, had sparked a discussion. “I have received a large number of death threats in the past few days,” said Heinrich. She had received messages such as “You are on the hit list”, “The wrong people are always raped” or “Someone like you is gassed”. She is in contact with the security authorities.
In the interview, the 20-year-old emphasized that she regretted what she said. At that time she had used the term “disgusting white majority society” or replied “Heil” to another tweet with a swastika. “Back then, when I was 13 or 14, I thought it was normal. But it wasn’t and it isn’t. It was wrong and hurtful, ”she said.
Heinrich said she grew up with Battlerap at the time and spent a lot of time on the internet. “There was a different tone and a different sense of humor, especially when it comes to discriminatory jokes and sayings.” However, ideas of violence and discrimination are “not just slogans, but bad. And I apologize for that ”.
The new Green Youth spokeswoman does not want to withdraw from the public. “Then the Shitstorm would have reached its destination. I look forward to representing the Green Youth as federal spokeswoman. “Heinrich thinks it is important to” measure people by their actions and by the positions they represent in the present “. She likes to face criticism of her statements and thinks they are important. “But a shit storm makes a critical discussion impossible for all sides.”
The “shitstorm” against them came from right-wing networks that wanted to play groups off against each other. “They say that you have to decide: whoever is in favor of climate protection is anti-social,” said Heinrich.
When asked whether she would have been just as indignant, a chairman of the Junge Union tweeted something similar, the 20-year-old said: “I think I would not have participated in such an outrage. At least not when it is clear that the statements from that time have nothing to do with his current positions. ”However, she considers the question to be justified and is of the opinion“ that there must be no double standards. And maybe we should learn to be more lenient again. This applies to all sides ”.
Heinrich replies to Heidenreich
As a teenager, she shared with other people on the Internet about poverty, social inequality and the Black Lives Matter protests. “By the way, my friends called me ‘moral apostle’ at school because I have dealt a lot with issues of inequality and anti-discrimination. They said: Sarah, that’s a little bit over now. “
In the interview, Heinrich also responded to the criticism of the writer Elke Heidenreich. In the ZDF program “Markus Lanz” she said that Heinrich had “no language at all. She can’t speak at all. These are again children who do not read, this is the generation of whom I notice again and again how speechless they are, how unable to deal with words ”.
When asked about this, Heinrich said “Zeit Online”: “The last time I read ‘The Hunger Games’, the new part. I’ve also been politically active for a few years. And I actually use a lot of words for that. “