After a May speech in Berlin by one of the founders of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, the German police launched an investigation. The musician took the stage in a suit resembling a Nazi uniform.
The BBC writes about the investigation on May 26. Waters performed in Berlin for two days on the middle of May. The show assumed that one of the songs of the rock opera The Wall was performed by a musician in a black leather coat with a red armband, the image resembled the uniform of SS officers, but the real symbolism was replaced with crossed hammers. At the end of the song In The Flesh, Waters picked up an imitation machine gun, similar to the “Schmeisser”, and, as it were, shot the crowd.
The song describes the experience of a man who, under drugs, imagines himself to be a fascist dictator.
The German police see this element of the show as hate speech. “It was felt that the context in which these clothes are used is able to serve to approve, glorify or justify the cruel and despotic Nazi regime. This infringes on the human dignity of the victims and thus violates public peace,” quotes edition of Berlin police spokesman Martin Halweg. It is noted that this is not the first time Waters performs in such clothes, but she has become closer to the original.
Waters also has claims on the part of anisemitism. But in the same concert, an inflatable pig appeared above the stage, bearing the same crossed hammers, the Shell oil company logo, and the Star of David. The names of the Jewish girl Anne Frank, who died because of the Nazis, and the Palestinian-American journalist Shirin Abu Akle, who was killed by the Israeli military, appeared on the scenery.
