German band Rammstein sparks fury with ‘repulsive’ Holocaust clip

BERLIN — German hardrock band Rammstein has sparked protests from politicians, historians and Jewish groups with a video showing band members dressed as concentration camp prisoners with nooses around their necks.

Critics accuse the Berlin-based group of a cynical publicity stunt playing with Nazi-era imagery to generate media hype and online clicks for their new single.

No strangers to controversy, the band has long employed dark militaristic imagery and in a 1998 video used footage from Leni Riefenstahl’s 1936 Nazi propaganda film “Olympia.”

Frontman Till Lindemann, 56, asked in a 2006 interview whether the band would again dabble in Nazi themes, said: “No. Because I am fed up with allegations of being a rightwing band.”

However, in the new promotional clip, the band members are dressed in black-and-white striped concentration camp garb and seemingly awaiting their execution by hanging.

Lindemann is shown bleeding from a facial cut and guitarist Paul Landers, 54, wears a Star of David.

At the end of the 35-second clip, the song title “Deutschland” (Germany) appears in Gothic letters.

Bild quotes a line-up of politicians who voiced anger and disgust, with Jewish historian Michael Wolffsohn labelling it “a new form of desecration of the dead.”

Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein calls it “a tasteless exploitation of artistic freedom” that “represents the transgression of a red line.”

— AFP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36Zon01v5k