The anger over Daniele Ganser’s performances in Germany continues

The controversial Swiss historian Daniele Ganser is allowed to deliver his lecture ‘Why did the war break out in Ukraine?’ to hold. performance in Hanover. A city spokesperson confirmed this on Wednesday at the request of Watson’s media partner T-Online.

Performances by the controversial historian in public halls are currently causing protest and outrage in many places. Critics accuse the Swiss historian of making NS comparisons and putting the Holocaust into perspective. Politicians and the Jewish community have already registered a demonstration against the action.

How does the city motivate its decision?

“There is no legal basis for the HCC to terminate the contract for an event with Mr Ganser,” said a spokesman for the city of Hanover, which is in close contact with other cities. There is a legal obligation for the HCC, a subsidiary of the capital, to hold events regardless of the content displayed, the spokesperson continued.

This also applies regardless of whether the event has been politically criticized or not. “It would only be different if there were recognizable dangerous situations,” says the spokesperson. That wouldn’t be the case with Daniele Ganser’s looks.

The city also fears a lawsuit if the city terminates the contract with Ganser. “This legal position was confirmed again last year by a ruling of the Supreme Court,” says the spokesperson.

This refers to a statement from January last year, in which the city of Munich held a critical panel discussion on the question “To what extent does Munich restrict freedom of expression?” had to give up a municipal event hall after a judgment.

What do Ganser’s critics say?

The historian Daniele Ganser has repeatedly attracted attention with questionable propositions in the past. He compared the “fear of the pandemic” to the “fear of the dictatorship.” As part of a documentation on Corona policy, Ganser said there is “madness worldwide” – an assessment he backs up with a Holocaust comparison. According to Ganser, his madness was local.

“If you think carefully, the logic of his statements is: the unvaccinated are the new Jews. That too is a form of anti-Semitism,” says social psychologist Pia Lamberty. Only last week, after t-online reporting, did Ganser renew his comparison with the Scholl siblings.

Members of the Hanoverian Pirate Party criticized the city’s actions last week. City association president Thomas Ganskow told t-online, “Since the HCC is just an outsourced subsidiary of the city, the city could lend a hand here”. The party had announced that it would investigate how the contract with the HCC could be concluded. “We’re not letting go,” said Ganskow, who had also called for consequences in the HCC if the reading were found in the city.

Whether «Nachdenkseiten», «Rubikon» or «KenFM»: Ganser is prominently represented in the most common alternative media. Ganser has also given interviews to “Compact” in the past. The magazine has since been classified as right-wing extremist by the Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution. For Patrick Guyton of the “taz” Ganser is a “conspiracy guru”

After Ganser’s appearance at the HCC became known, Rebecca Seidler, director of the Liberal Jewish Community in Hanover, told t-online, “The community is looking forward to this event with great irritation and concern.” According to her, “gross conspiracy stories, which often end in anti-Semitic language, are not the basis for a healthy culture of debate, but are simply unacceptable.”

Michael Fürst, chairman of the Jewish community, also supports Seidler in an interview with the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” (HAZ): “I do not understand the reluctance of the city of Hanover.”

What’s next?

Because of the performance, the Jewish community is now planning a demonstration with Liam Harrold (Greens) on the date of the event for the HCC. The spokesperson for the group for cultural policy and anti-fascism tells T-Online: “I understand the reasoning of the town hall. In the worst case, the organizer complains and the city of Hanover has to pay six-figure compensation – which then ends up in right-wing networks” Harrold fears.

What is needed instead is a defensive civil society that together shows that Ganser’s theses have no place in Hanover. A planning meeting with several parties and associations has already been announced for next week.

Responding to a request from T-Online, the spokesperson for organizer Nema Entertainment – on behalf of Daniele Ganser – explained that “critique of government decisions is increasingly lost in the leading media and people who do practice it are squarely opposed”. . This is done “through slander, false accusations, insidious sedition and sordid libel”. All allegations against Ganser are “mostly copied from each other, unexamined and completely baseless”.

Lower Saxony’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Gerhard Wegner, sees it very differently: “The appearance of conspiracy theorist Gansers in Hanover is problematic,” he says on t-online. “We know from much research on misanthropy that conspiracy myths are the gateway to forms of misanthropy and anti-Semitism,” the theologian and social scientist continues.

Eastern European historians are also waging a broad front against Ganser. Among them are Martina Winkler in Kiel, Julia Obertreis in Nuremberg, Klaus Gestwa in Tübingen and Franziska Davies in Munich. Protests also arose in Stuttgart and Kiel. Most recently, the Schleswig-Holstein CDU politician Tobias von der Heide spoke out in favor of a ban on performances: the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs is demanding in an Instagram post that the show be cancelled.

In order to prevent such performances in Hanover’s Stadthalle in the future, the city wants to change the business principles of the HCC: “In the coming week, the head of economic services Anja Ritschel will also present an addition to the pricing principles for events in the HC.”

Sources

(t-online/dsc)