Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters is being investigated by Berlin police after he wore a Nazi-inspired outfit while performing last week in Germany, where it is illegal to display Nazi symbols.
The Associated Press reported that Berlin police said on Friday that they had launched an investigation into the musician on suspicion of provocation. The move comes after images and footage of the 79-year-old rocker appeared on social media, showing him wearing a long black coat with red armbands and firing a machine gun.
The German authorities stated that Waters’ clothing was similar to that of an SS officer and that the display could constitute glorification, justification or approval of the Nazi regime and therefore a disturbance of the public tranquillity.
After the investigation, the case will be handed over to Berlin prosecutors who will decide whether to press any charges against Waters. A spokesman for Waters did not immediately respond Friday to The Times’ request for comment.
The BBC said the display of Nazi symbols, flags and uniforms is prohibited in Germany, but there are exceptions to the law for artistic or educational reasons. Some of the symbols in question during Waters’ Berlin shows are similar to those seen on the costumes in his 1982 film “Pink Floyd: The Wall”.
The Grammy-nominated musician is in Europe on his This Is Not a Drill Tour, a politically charged farewell tour molded by his thoughts. Waters billed the show, which made its way through North America last year and was broadcast to theaters from Prague on Thursday, “a stunning indictment of the corporate dystopia in which we all struggle to survive.”
The “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” singer has been criticized for her support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for an end to international support for Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. and has been labeled an antisemit – a characterization he has repeatedly rejected.
The Munich city council also said in April that it had tried to ban their concert there last Sunday, but was not legally able to cancel the contract with the organiser. The AP said the show was opposed by a local Jewish community leader. The Frankfurt authorities also tried to stop Waters’ upcoming Sunday concert there, but the musician successfully challenged them in the local court. During his two-night stint at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin on 17 May, he reportedly took the stage with a message about the Frankfurt pushback.
The show will begin in 10 minutes and a court in Frankfurt has ruled that I am not an antisemite. Later, segments of the show referenced the Holocaust, and the Jerusalem Post reported that the singer repeatedly “antisemitic dogwhistle”. s)”. He reportedly compared Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager killed in a concentration camp during World War II.
That part of the show also included the names of other activists and people killed by officers, such as anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl, Iran’s Mahsa Amini, and George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police in 2020.
Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, Tweet On May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (yes Berlin), commemorating Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
In a lengthy Sunday Facebook post that touched on the plight of the Palestinians and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Waters and his wife paid their respects at the graves of members of the White Rose Movement, a resistance group during the Nazi era. He also thanked those who had attended his show in Germany, but “some were in power in Germany and some at the behest of the Israeli lobby” for attacking him.
“Walking around Munich yesterday afternoon I could not shake the feeling that I was in the presence of Big Brother. It leaves a bad taste,” he wrote. “I am very proud of all my brothers and sisters here, whether in BDS or not, who are standing up for human rights. You all carry the torch of Sophie and Hans Scholl and the rest of the White Rose movement. But the whole experience of coming here in Germany for the last five years fills me with sadness. I’m sorry that you had to live, or at least have to live, with the lies that we are all fed by The Powers That Be.
After Frankfurt, Waters is set to perform shows in Birmingham, England; Glasgow, Scotland; London; and Manchester in June before taking a summer break and going to South America in October.
Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled Waters’ concerts because of her support for Russia, which she has repeatedly called an “instigated” invasion of Ukraine.
