Recommendations of the Editorial team
In the Berlin “House of Cultures of the World” (HKW), two men met on Monday evening who need to know: satirist Jan Böhmermann and media lawyer Christian Schertz – for the first time on a stage. The occasion was a discussion event as part of the exhibition “The possibility of unreasonableness”, which can still be seen in the HKW until October 19.
The focus was on the old, always new question: “What can satire?” Böhmermann’s answer was briefly – and legally correct – from: “What satire is allowed to decide.”
The relationship between Böhmermann and Schertz is long, complex and characterized by changing dynamics – a game from confrontation and cooperation. Both faced each other over 20 years ago when Schertz represented the footballer Lukas Podolski against Böhmermann’s parody “Lukas Tagebuch”. At the latest since the “Smowing Criticism” affair in 2016, in which Schertz Böhmermann defended against the lawsuit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, she has a professional relationship of trust-even if Böhmermann once had a cartoon by Schertz as “Dr. Witz”.
HKW does not respond on the request of the Rolling Stone
The recently heavily discussed implosion of the accompanying concert series came up. The first domino stone that fell was rapper chief ket-after criticism of an Instagram post was loud, on which he showed a jersey with a Palestine without Israel.
Minister of Media Wolfram Weimer also commented and criticized concert planning-of all people on the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. According to Böhmermann, however, Weimer’s opinion did not play a role in the cancellation. Rather, the team recognized that “the non-consideration of Jewish positions” could not be responsible on this day, such as cited the Funke media.
The subsequent Tohuwabohu – all other booked acts canceled their appearances – were left uncommented in the HKW. There was nonchalant away.
So the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” asked itself whether the whole thing was not a “big joke” in the sense of the satirist – a targeted provocation to trigger this debate. A request from Rolling Stone for strategies and backgrounds left the HKW unanswered at the end of last week.
Böhmermann and his Mephisto grin
Böhmermann himself expressed himself only indirectly-as usual with a Mephisto grin.
The audience may have expected an exchange of blows, but got a reasonably civilian conversation. Böhmermann and Schertz discussed legal gray areas-such as the famous “Saxony-beekeeper-Law dispute” or Schertz ‘controversial role as a lawyer of Till Lindemann.
Incidentally, it is no coincidence that there are no freely photographed press photos from this evening. The photo ban in the hall was part of the “concept” – or maybe part of the game: an evening about the public that partially evades the public documentation.