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German police are investigating Roger Waters, the founder of the band Pink Floyd, who has long criticized Israel, after he appeared in Berlin last week wearing a Nazi-style costume similar to the one he used to criticize fascism at “The Wall.”
Mr. Waters, who has made anti-Israel statements in the past month that many have said crossed the line into antisemitism, has successfully fought two attempts by German courts to block him from German concert venues in the past month.
The investigation focused on the costume Mr. Waters wore during a rendition of Pink Floyd’s 1979 song “In the Flesh,” from the seminal album “The Wall,” in which the rock star imagined himself as a fascist dictator. A similar staging was featured in the 1982 film “Pink Floyd: The Wall,” featuring Bob Geldof.
During part of the concert in Berlin, on May 17 and 18, Mr. Waters wore a black trench coat with epaulets and a red armband, according to videos posted to social media and witnesses. Flanked by people in costumes that evoke Nazi stormtroopers, they fire prop machine guns into the audience. Mr. Waters has worn the same costume in concerts outside Germany for years for routines, which he called satirical.
The Berlin authorities must determine whether the display of Nazi-like imagery is protected by freedom of artistic expression. In Germany, displaying Nazi symbolism, such as the swastika or SS regalia, justifying or belittling the Holocaust, and acting antisemitic is illegal.
“Freedom of artistic expression is not a license to incite hatred,” wrote Nicholas Potter, a researcher at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin, a group that tracks neo-Nazism, right-wing extremism and antisemitism in Germany, in an email exchange.
“Artistic freedom is often used as an argument to express anti-democratic or hateful views, including antisemitic, but this is not always the case – the context is important,” he said. Mr. Potter attended one of the Berlin events and wrote about it on the foundation’s news blog.
Mr. Waters initially agreed to an interview with The New York Times about the investigation, but later declined. A representative wrote: “We are reluctant to comment if the intention is to sensationalize this manufactured news.”
A Berlin police spokesman said investigators would present their findings to Berlin’s state attorney within the next three months. The state’s attorney will decide whether to charge Mr. Waters.
Mr. Waters is a vocal supporter of BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which pushes governments, businesses and foreign players to cut ties with Israel to end its occupation of territories it captured in 1967, among other demands.
Mr. Waters in past concerts has included floating balloons representing flying pigs, featuring the Star of David. He defended the action, saying in 2013 on Facebook that, “Like it or not, the Star of David represents Israel and its policy and is legally subject to any and all forms of non-violent protest.”
In a Facebook post on Sunday, discussing the controversy surrounding the German concert, he criticized German lawmakers who condemned BDS, saying they “endorsed the recommendation for Germans to be ‘silent and indifferent'” to the “institutional murder” of Palestinians by a “tyrannical racist regime ,” which said it was the State of Israel.
On a giant display board at the concert, the name of Anne Frank, one of the most recognizable victims of the Holocaust, when Germany killed more than 6 million Jews, was juxtaposed with the name of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American television correspondent. who was shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers during an attack in the West Bank last year.
On Wednesday morning the Israeli Foreign Ministry posted on Twitter: “Good morning to everyone, but Roger Waters spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) destroying the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.”
On Wednesday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center publicly called on German authorities to investigate the concert in Berlin. “There are few players whose anti-Israel vitriol can match Waters’,” the center wrote in a statement. “Despite his denials, Waters has for years straddled the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.”
Any charges stemming from the concert will come as Germany faces a more public debate about the resurgence of antisemitism in the country, 78 years after the end of the Holocaust. In addition to the overall increase in the number of antisemitic crimes reported in the country, there was a wide discussion after a group of leaders of cultural institutions published an open letter that not only BDS but also a parliamentary resolution declaring BDS as antisemitic. And an art installation featuring antisemitic caricatures at the Documenta art festival in Kassel last year led to another round of soul searching among the cultural elite.
The city of Frankfurt is trying to stop Mr Waters from performing at the Frankfurter Festhalle this Sunday, a concert venue partly owned by the city. In November 1938, thousands of Jews were taken to the arena after the night of the pogrom known as Kristallnacht, before being sent to concentration camps. But a judge in Frankfurt sided with Mr. Waters, who had filed an emergency injunction against the city on Friday, citing his constitutional right to artistic freedom and the fact that there was no evidence that Mr. Waters would break the law.
In March, the city of Munich determined that it could not withdraw from the contract with the musicians for the show, which was played at the Olympic Stadium there last week. But the city decided to allow protests to be organized outside the venue on the day of the concert.
Alex Marshall contributed reports from London.
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