Hape Kerkeling calls on the SPD parliamentary group to fight decisively against intolerance and extremism

At an internal meeting, the entertainer and comedian Hape Kerkeling called on the SPD parliamentary group to resolutely counter intolerance and extremism.

"If we build every claim, no matter how crude, in the name of freedom of expression, the same stage as a verified fact, if we give every enemy of the constitution the same resonance space as his opponents in the name of supposed fairness, then we are not sawing the branch of intolerance. We are sawing the branch on which we all sit together," said Kerkeling in a meeting that took place behind closed doors on Thursday. Excerpts from the speech were distributed in writing by the SPD.

The actor and entertainer spoke at the SPD's closed meeting. The title of his impulse was: “Is it all a matter of opinion? Where tolerance in a democracy has its limits and what matters now”. He then discussed with the parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch and the MPs.

The actor warned against a “capitulation of the facts to the volume” and also made reference to the AfD. He recalled that the parliamentary group leader of “a certain party” openly said in 2018 that the twelve years of National Socialism were just “bird shit” in over a thousand years of German history. The AfD parliamentary group leader at the time, Alexander Gauland, literally said: "Hitler and the Nazis are just a piece of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."

Kerkeling reminded the Social Democratic MPs of the SPD party leader Otto Wels, who stood up at a Reichstag meeting on March 23, 1933 and was the only one to contradict the National Socialists' Enabling Act - "with sentences that still raise the hairs on the back of our necks today," said Kerkeling.

“Freedom and life can be taken away from us, but not our honor,” Wels had said. And: "No enabling law gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible."

Kerkeling said to the MPs that Wels could have remained silent. "Silence would have been more comfortable. (...) He still didn't do it. And that's exactly why we're not standing at his grave today, ninety-three years later. We stand in his example.

The 61-year-old Kerkeling - known to many for roles such as that of the Rhenish-jovial deputy editor-in-chief Horst Schlämmer ("Isch candidiere") - has always taken political positions. In April he spoke to commemorate the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. There is a petition online calling for him to be elected Federal President next year.