Does Thomas Gottschalk’s statements cause cheers among the right-wing populists in the AfD? In his new book he also writes about the party. t-online exclusively publishes an excerpt.
In the past few days, Thomas Gottschalk has made many headlines with his statements surrounding the publication of his book “Unfiltered”. His views on topics such as #MeToo, “official touching” of women and the sensitive use of language are hotly debated. An accusation that is often made against the 74-year-old entertainer: With his statements, he is playing into the hands of right-wing populists.
According to the theory, the AfD is benefiting from Gottschalk’s announcements and is celebrating them. When asked whether this bothered him, he appeared unimpressed in the past few days. He accepts this “approvingly”. But what opinion does Gottschalk have about the AfD? t-online is publishing an excerpt from the book “Unfiltered” in advance, which provides information about this question.
“[…] It’s like black or white: you simply can’t manage your life with either/or, and you only learn over time that a large part of your life takes place in the ‘gray zone’ in between. That’s why I’ve been suspicious of such positions for a long time, and I rather disliked the prim youngsters who joined the conservatives early in life because of their inappropriate self-confidence, because I’ve always been of the opinion that life is what matters to you direction points.
John Lennon, whom we collectively elevated to the status of sainthood as Beatles fans early on, certainly took a left-wing position with his song “Power to the People” and was shot in the street before his life took him. Che Guevara was featured more often on our T-shirts than the “Fuck You” we often see today, which expresses a dislike for just about everything, while our flocking was, in addition to the man’s cool look, also intended as a political statement. The hearts of everyone on the left who were young and wanted to be hip beat.
At the last class reunion in the Zum Seelöwen inn in Kulmbach, I met a remaining group, none of whom had certainly voted for The Left anymore. But we all agreed that a new political force called AfD, which feeds on shitstorms and stirs up outrage and discontent, cannot be the solution. Instead of having objective discussions and working out solutions that can reach a majority, for which it would have to make compromises, it exhausts itself by being against it – against the other parties and, ultimately, against the Basic Law. Even if the AfD should perhaps be banned for this reason, I am of the opinion that once a political force has a certain level of support from the population, it can no longer be kept silent. I think, perhaps for professional reasons, that we cannot ignore what a majority wants to see on television or in parliament. We have to deal with it. This would certainly be easier if there were more people that we could and would like to follow.
Over thirty years ago, in November 1992, I tried it myself. The result was an early shitstorm that I survived, slightly injured, before the Internet made this bad weather front accessible to everyone. Slightly wounded in terms of my public perception, but badly wounded in terms of my self-esteem. I met Franz Schönhuber, to whom I owed the public beating, as the television director of Bayerischer Rundfunk, who certainly supported my television career. After all, he sent me through the provinces with the music show “18-19-Music” for Bavarian Television, a show in which I tracked down young Bavarian musicians in their hometowns. In the eyes of the authority-believing newcomer that I was at the time, this public-law superior was not questioned and was not classified as one of the “dumb asses” that one so often encounters in the political sphere. But Schönhuber was the forefather and chairman of the right-wing Republicans, who caused a similar negative stir in the 1990s as the AfD does today. In “Gottschalk Late Night” I wanted to boldly stand up to the man and couldn’t imagine that a public dignitary would be deserted by all good spirits. The fact that he had a Turkish daughter-in-law also spoke against racism and was, for me, evidence of his cosmopolitanism. I failed completely in front of my audience in this TV conversation. My belief in the phrase “As long as they talk, they don’t shoot” was severely shaken after this encounter.