’Punish them severely and remig… ups, repatriate them!’
On the 75th anniversary of the Federal Press Conference, Fabian Hinrichs and Nico and the Navigators show what happens when a populist party comes to power and does what it wants. The reality in Germany, however, is even more frightening.
The first projections appear on the screen at the Federal Press Conference: the Left Party, BSW and Greens are out of the state parliament, the SPD is in single digits and the CDU is at just under 20 per cent. The clear winner in the Free State is the DA with a whopping 44 per cent. DA stands for Democratic Alliance, but also for the name of its founder, Dominik Arndt, the new Minister President.
On the evening of his election victory, he makes a surprise visit to Berlin to face the journalists he has avoided until now. Even before he enters the Federal Press Conference building, TV journalist Theo Koll gets the first interview. The real Theo Koll, of course. This is also now flickering across the screen in the press conference room.
Fabian Hinrichs: smart and slick populist
And then he enters the room: Dominik Arndt alias Fabian Hinrichs – springy gait, smart suit, serene, charming smile. Instead of answering questions, however, he prefers to reel off his party programme: ‘We are social, we are democratic, we are alternative, we are liberal. We are also national, but that has nothing to do with right or left, but with the centre, with a passion for our country.’
The audience of this play with the telling title ‘Ein Volksbürger’ (A Citizen of the People) sits where the press usually sits – between them are four actors playing journalists who, over the course of a year and a series of increasingly heated press conferences, ask uncomfortable questions. Because where the Democratic Alliance wants to spend money on digitisation, infrastructure and education, savings also have to be made. ‘Could it be that your austerity measures already extend to the enforcement of immigration law?’ asks a brash journalist.
Suddenly, there are cries of ‘coup by the federal government!’
The accusations are mounting. The Free State is delaying asylum procedures and refusing residence permits, leaving refugees without basic social security and literally out on the street. And it defends its actions with the supposed protection of its voters: ‘Anyone who wants to proclaim a theocracy in our Free State or carries out the most disgusting anti-Semitic actions will be punished with the full force of the law and also remi... ups, repatriated.’
This is the dig at the AfD and the remigration debate that Maximilian Steinbeis has inserted here. He is not only the author of the play, but also editor-in-chief of the online media outlet ‘Verfassungsblog’, where he long predicted the current quarrels in the Thuringian state parliament. In the play, he now acts out what happens when the executive branch does not recognise the judiciary. The DA party denies the federal government access to the files. Until the federal government wins its case before the Constitutional Court – but then has to enforce this right with the help of the federal police. Which does not make for good headlines. Suddenly, there is talk of coup attempts by the federal government.
Real issue: Markus Söder and the diesel ban
Anyone who considers this brazen disregard for the court by a minister-president to be excessive need only look to Bavaria, as the evening also points out. In 2012, Markus Söder simply ignored the diesel ban that the Free State had been ordered to implement.
The production by Nicola Hümpel and the group Nico and the Navigators emphasises a realistic scenario – including name tags and water bottles for the characters. Nevertheless, the evening also plays with political farce, with Fabian Hinrichs exaggerating and using irony – which works well for the two-hour play.
In the service of political education
A theatre evening that serves political education rather than art – which is no bad thing. The fact that its content is less thought-provoking than intended is simply because reality is even more frightening. For while the populist spectre has been banished with the help of the courts after a year (the party is in ruins, the prime minister has fled to Italy), reality has to prepare itself for a debacle lasting at least four years. In the Thuringian state parliament. But not only there.
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