The managers of Munich’s Oktoberfest have said they will seek to ban an Italian disco hit from being played at the world’s most famous beer festival after its hijacking by far-right revellers.
In recent months the schmaltzy love lyrics of L’amour Toujours, a catchy 2001 hit by Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino, have repeatedly been drowned out at public gatherings by a Nazi slogan: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out”.
Last week footage from the elite German party island of Sylt showing people singing the racist version of the song went viral, causing a wave of outrage and a string of lawsuits.
Now Clemens Baumgärtner, the boss of Oktoberfest, has said the song will have no place at the mammoth beer-drinking spectacle.
“We want to ban it and we will ban it,” he told German media. “There is no place for all that rightwing crap at the Oktoberfest.”
Other major events are also said to be considering following suit.
Charges are expected to be made against at least five people who participated at the Sylt party, on the terrace of the Pony Club, a popular disco venue on the island’s so-called Whiskey Mile.
The Pony Club owners have said they knew nothing about the song being adapted on their premises until it was brought to their attention.
They are also considering suing the culprits for reputational and economic damage. Amid the fallout from the controversy, a major sponsor said it was ending its relationship with them.
D’Agostino has distanced himself from the attempt to reshape his hit, telling Der Spiegel magazine he knew nothing about the far-right adaptation, and insisting the song was “about a wonderful, big and intense feeling that connects people. It is love”.
The racist lyrics first emerged last autumn at a video of a gathering in a town in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in which the mayor’s son was among those chanting them. A police investigation was launched.
Although the Sylt version is the most prominent, hundreds of others from across the country have surfaced in recent days, uploaded to the social media platform TikTok.
Among those to condemn the video was Nancy Faeser, minister of the interior, who told the newspaper group Funke Medien: “The question is whether we are dealing with people who live in a parallel society who are neglectful due to their affluence and trample on the values of our constitution.
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“Anyone who shouts Nazi slogans, like ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’, is a disgrace for Germany,” she said.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called it “disgusting and unacceptable”.
Experts suspect that far-right activists have intentionally exploited and spread the new version of the song, in line with their strategy of recontextualising and normalising rightwing ideas through pop culture content.
Faeser instructed Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to investigate those involved on suspicion of incitement, declaring a wider campaign to crack down on the normalisation of Nazi slogans.
One of the people involved in Sylt, who was depicted making a Nazi salute and imitating a Hitler moustache, has issued a public apology. The son of a Munich businessman, the man said he had been under the influence of alcohol.
A woman singing directly into the camera of her boyfriend’s phone , who filmed the adaptation, has been dismissed by the influencer who employed her. Coming from a migrant background herself, said the influencer, made it impossible for her to continue working with her.
The names and workplaces of those identified as singing the forbidden lyrics have been widely shared on social media, resulting in several of them losing their jobs. Pony Club have said they are now banned from their premises.