BERLIN, DE (CelebrityAccess) – Founder and former lyricist for Pink Floyd – Roger Waters, has been condemned for appearing in an SS uniform during a concert at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin on May 17.
According to FoxNews, local journalists in Berlin reported Waters’ show began with a screen projection of the words, “The show will start in 10 minutes, and a court in Frankfurt has ruled that I am not an antisemite. But, just to be clear, I condemn antisemitism unreservedly.”
However, the following show seemed to contradict those words – as offensive and antisemitic images were shown throughout. Once the concert intermission ended, Waters walked on stage wearing an SS officer uniform, complete with a red armband and a fake rifle which he “shoots” into the crowd.
An inflatable pig floated above the crowd with the logo of an Israeli armaments firm and had Third Reich-style banners with crossed hammers instead of swastikas.
Footnote: he also dressed up as an SS soldier with an armband, firing a dummy rifle pic.twitter.com/xHb57HjHr2
— Alex Hearn (@hearnimator) May 23, 2023
Waters also projected the name of Anne Frank on the stage to draw comparisons between Israel and Germany, leading Germany’s Orthodox rabbinical association to call for a ban on further Waters’ concerts in the country.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Waters displayed several names of victims considered to be killed by state actors, including George Floyd, anti-Nazi activist Sophie School and Mahsa Amini, the Iranian woman who died while in the custody of the “morality police.” He then listed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh before Holocaust victim Anne Frank – drawing harsh outrage from Jewish and Israeli social media. Akleh was killed while on assignment in the West Bank in 2022.
Waters recently performed concerts in Munich and Berlin and is heading to Frankfurt, where he has successfully appealed a court order to ban the show. It is scheduled for May 28. The City of Frankfurt had called Waters “one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world” over Israel’s critique and imagery at his past concerts in a plea to ban the concert from happening. Munich’s mayor also unsuccessfully attempted to block a show from Waters.
Sacha Stawski, Frankfurt-based pro-Israel activist and founder of Honestly Concerned, said, “My goal is to educate about his hatred, to make sure less and less people go into these concerts.”
Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said at a protest before Water’s concert that she is frustrated by the courts. “Since October 2022, there have been arguments about this concert. Legal motions and media headlines have been produced en masse — without yielding any result,” she said. “So that now, in May, we are standing here protesting against a concert that is taking place exactly as Roger Waters always wanted it to.”
The Belltower journalist Nicholas Potter, who attended the May 17 Berlin show, told The Times of Israel that the average concertgoer appeared to be white, German and around 60 years old.
Waters has had little new to say about the allegations of antisemitism and has not changed his tune. According to the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, hours before his concert in Munich, Waters posted a message on Facebook calling Israel a “tyrannical, racist regime.” He compared the BDS movement to Germany’s Nazi-era White Rose resistance movement, whose leaders, including siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, were beheaded by the Nazi regime.
Waters said, “For all I care, they can try to cancel every concert I do in Germany. I will fight them in court,” he told Spiegel Magazine in an interview. “It’s a tragedy for Germany that they even try. Because the message to the world is: We Germans don’t care about human rights and freedom of expression.”
People should take Waters at his word and stay away if they disagree with his politics, said Stawski, referring to the fact that Waters also tells Pink Floyd fans in the audience who don’t agree with him to “f*** off” via the arena screen.
“If you are a fan of Pink Floyd but do not want to go along with the antisemitism, buy a CD of Pink Floyd and do not damn well go into these concerts,” Stawski said.
