The question now is how this could have happened. In its unveiling article, the “Spiegel” wrote that Weimar sang “anti-democratic, violent and hardly concealed anti-Jewish lyrics”, but this statement is difficult to maintain in view of the band’s elastic metaphors per se. Although the musicians had used a partly rough language with corresponding rebellious phrases, it was more in the usual rebel rock vocabulary and hardly objectionable on its own. Rather, and that’s what makes things so controversial, on the contrary: Even before the release of the debut, the band had collected two million clicks on YouTube with a video clip in which a colorful group of fans of all ages and migration groups sang to the song “Anders Als Die Andern” sang a text that could very well be understood as a call for tolerance and free cooperation – and which therefore also appealed to fans who had already waved off bands like Böhse Onkelz.
Weimar, and that probably also appealed to Universal, seemed more like someone would combine the successfully sounding heartiness of German rockers with diffuse content like Freiwild with the cool openness of Kraftklub. Especially since the singing managed to remind of both bands at the same time. Of course, there was a lot to complain about, among other things, the song “Alles Lüge” served some blunt “Lügenpresse” clichés. However, “Wegnar” responded to such criticisms in interviews, including with the “Freie Presse”, in a considered manner. At the end of the year, the band gave the first club concert of their career in Freiberg – at a charity festival.
A number of big scene festivals such as “With Full Force” had therefore booked Weimar for this summer – and unloaded them immediately after the current revelations. The booking agency In Move immediately stopped working with the band: “There are more than politically questionable pasts in the room. These were not known to us and run counter to all of our beliefs,” it said in explanation.
The case is another example of how artists’ attitudes can sometimes simply not be determined by their works. Which is good on the one hand: art should always be able to stand on its own. On the other hand, the work and the maker can never be unconditionally separated. This demands all levels of a cultural scene equally and in detail: Makers, consumers, organizers, media must interact with each other and at the same time always decide for themselves how to deal with it. In the best case, discursive “self-cleansing mechanisms” develop in the (subcultural) scene, which then also classify the codes and subtexts and promote the discussion at the root. Only there is it really effective.
Because artistic ambiguity and metaphorical language are a gateway that, in case of doubt, can also be used from a short distance. And that raises frightening questions in this case, because the mechanisms used here like masks. After all, metaphors and pseudonyms are all common artistic means that should not be placed under general suspicion. Did musicians with an unbearable background simply want to cash in on mainstream success? Or was Weimar a targeted attempt to establish reach and a basis in the middle of society, in order to then later, as a well-established entity, continue to push the “limits of what can be said” from there? Should the latter be the case, the move would be disturbingly clever.
The case is reminiscent of that of the band Weissglut, which managed to get a place with the Sony group in 1998 with the musically remarkably strong album Something is coming into your world. At that time, the group was considered the most promising candidate to date to be able to build on the Rammstein success. Shortly after the release, singer and mastermind Josef Maria Klumb was outed as a fascist, but even in this case the lyrics of the record only got a recognizable aftertaste against this background. Listened neutrally, lines like “The sun is glowing white / Love is burning hot / The sun is glowing white / So rich in light” did not indicate a Nazi band. The fact that lyrics by pop artists can sometimes be interpreted widely is generally regarded as a quality that should stimulate thinking. Weissglut and Sony had tried to save the project artistically with a new singer at the time – but after the unveiling that was simply no longer possible.
There is currently no reliable evidence that P. was or is an actual Weimar member. Which in the end is also due to the fact that ultimately a band decides for itself who this band is. However, the evidence presented by “Spiegel” is quite overwhelming. That’s why it seems strange when Universal and organizers unanimously state that they neither knew nor suspected anything. But that is exactly what cannot be dismissed out of hand when viewed in the light of day.