One could almost have believed that the Berlin historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk would like to apologize to the Rammstein singer Till Lindemann with a new tweet. At the beginning of January, he took a quote from the musician’s birthday as an opportunity to call him “Honk” on Twitter. Rammstein are a “GDR nostalgia band” because they keep emphasizing that not everything was bad in their past in the former GDR. Now the historian, who is intensively involved in the processing of the SED dictatorship, steps in again: “I’m sorry to have called the Rammstein front man Honk. How am I supposed to call Mr. Lorenz alias Flake now? Vollhonk maybe?”
The tweet from March 18th goes on to say: “The millionaire whines and whines and whines in the ‘Moskauer Zeitung'” – by which Kowalczuk means the Berliner Zeitung. Flake behaves like an SED functionary who tries to use the “we” too often. The historian wonders when the musician will slip into his Präsent 20 – an all-polyester suit made in the former GDR.
he only in the we-sound. Full collectivization, the ideology works. And he writes exactly what I also wrote, but was heavily insulted for it: Rammstein as a kind of GDR artefact. Is that embarrassing – when will he finally put on his “Present 20”?! It fits! pic.twitter.com/Noqx0kdrrB
— Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (@IlkoKowalczuk) March 18, 2023
The original excitement for Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk was a Lindemann quote that MDR had spread on social channels for the singer’s birthday. “In the GDR we had very little, but there was a sense of solidarity that I miss now. Today we are up to our necks in consumerism, selfishness and individualism.”
I can’t help that stupid quote, but it fits my image of this honk. Rammstein is a GDR nostalgia band. If you don’t believe that, you should listen to the incredibly stupid statements of the so-called keyboardist Flake about the GDR. pic.twitter.com/RI3Wz4lHXr
— Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk (@IlkoKowalczuk) January 5, 2023
Rammstein: a GDR nostalgia band?
All Rammstein members were born in the former GDR and – like the historian – grew up there. Flake, who also works as an author, has already written down some anecdotes from that time. He also occasionally talks about his observations in Berlin. This also includes addressing changes that he noticed in his home district of Prenzlauer Berg in the decades after reunification.