Frei.Wild frontman
“Insane to reduce me to the shit years”
Ex-Nazi, chart-topper, hobby farmer - Philipp Burger is without doubt the most controversial rock musician in the German-speaking world. With his band Frei.Wild, the 43-year-old fills the biggest halls and the feature pages. Krone+ met the South Tyrolean at his farm in Brixen for a chat about his skinhead past, love of his homeland and hatred of Jews.
Philipp Burger loves the Viennese. At least the cattle. On his idyllic farm, the Tölzlhof in Brixen, the 43-year-old breeds "Pustertaler Sprinzen", the most beautiful breed of cattle in Austria. These cattle, known for their tender meat, were once so popular on imperial farms that they were referred to as "Viennese cows". Today, only a few farmers breed this rare breed. One of them is Burger, the most controversial rock star in the German-speaking world.
He is a man who polarizes. With his band Frei.Wild, the singer and songwriter sells hundreds of thousands of albums, which reliably land at the top of the German and Austrian charts. The German rock quartet's tours are also always sold out.
Active in the Nazi scene for three years
Despite this success, fierce debates have raged around the South Tyrolean combo since its formation in September 2001. This is because Burger, who comes from a middle-class background, was active in the extreme right-wing skinhead scene for three years as a teenager. In the booklet of a CD by his first band "Kaiserjäger", he raised his hand in a Hitler salute.
However, he has long since broken with the Nazi scene. In his autobiography "Freiheit mit Narben. Mein Weg von rechts nach überall" ("Freedom with scars. My path from the right to everywhere"), he tells of his exit from the right-wing scene.
This made little impression on his critics. They accuse him of spreading subliminally nationalistic and racist ideas in Frei.Wild songs such as "Südtirol", "Wahre Werte", "Gutmenschen und Moralapostel" or "Land der Vollidioten". Frei.Wild made primitive identity rock that flirted with far-right positions.
Conclusive arguments, self-pitying justifications
During the Krone+ visit to Brixen, the trained carpenter is friendly, direct and by no means free of invective. He speaks quickly, often passionately. Conclusive arguments and self-pitying attempts at justification alternate in rapid succession. The Tschick in his mouth is constantly present, he opens a bottle of Moretti beer with his lighter.
The 43-year-old can't and won't understand why he is still being asked about his past: "It's madness that people reduce me to those three shitty years. It's not a question of forgiveness, it's a question of fair weighting. I don't want my whole life to be pinned down to what I did as a teenager."
He dismisses his time in the Nazi scene - as well as the Hitler salute in the CD booklet - as forgivable youthful sins, primarily due to alcohol and age-related stupidity. The more people rejected him, the more he tried to provoke them with his confused views. Burger: "Our anger was directed at ourselves, at our own dissatisfaction with the world. We were trapped in an everyday rut and wanted to get on people's nerves. Apart from the fact that we looked like the last of the idiots, we didn't do much different from many other young people." At least he stayed away from drugs and completed his apprenticeship: "That was the only good thing, everything else was crap."
He was "totally resistant to advice" during this time. His parents - his mother is a history teacher - had always meant well by him, but had not been able to get through to him. It was only after a Kaiserjäger concert ended in a mass brawl between German-speaking and Italian skinheads that he made a fundamental change: "It was necessary for me to fall on my face." After that, he was considered a "traitor to the scene".
It's madness that I'm being reduced to those three shitty years. It's not a question of forgiveness, it's a question of decent weighting. I don't want my whole life to be pinned down to what I did as a teenager.
Philipp Burger, Frei.Wild-Sänger
He had only harmed himself
The greatest damage was done to himself, says Burger: "There is one thing in my life that unfortunately cannot be turned back. My appearance alone - a bomber jacket-wearing skinhead - has caused many, many people who meant a lot to me to distance themselves from me. Be it out of political conviction, self-protection or pressure from my circle of friends." These three years are to blame for the fact that he "lost these people forever". That was "the worst thing" about the whole thing. But: he has not harmed anyone else and has no criminal record. The Frei.Wild singer emphasizes this.
The father of two teenage daughters is aware that this dark time is still echoed in the perception of Frei.Wild today: "The big problem as to why Frei.Wild has this reputation is of course due to my past, which I myself have revealed." Although he has distanced himself from his skinhead days, he has never been fully accepted as a dropout.
The reason: "People expect dropouts like me to make an ideological 180-degree turn, into the almost left-wing extremist milieu. If someone leaves the right-wing scene, it's simply not likely that they will suddenly become a left-wing Antifa activist." He has spoken to organizations such as "Exit" or "Keinen Bock auf Nazis" about working together, but has only received rejections: "They said: 'No, that won't work with you. You haven't done it properly yet'."
According to the Frei.Wild mastermind, this was a mistake and thanks to his own mistakes in the past, which he has always dealt with openly, he is predestined to reach out to young people who have drifted into the right-wing scene and help them to get out.
Not suitable to be the poster boy of Nazi dropouts
Burger complains that he is only rejected because he is not fit to be the poster boy of the Nazi drop-out scene. Why is it not enough to publicly turn away, he asks: "Why can't I turn my back on the extreme scene and live out my convictions in a healthy way?"
This is exactly what he does, the 43-year-old assures us - and he is not ashamed of it. He has been shaped by his origins and grew up with a variety of local customs, legends, stories and songs. He holds this heritage dear.
Is he proud of his homeland? First and foremost, he feels "gratitude and appreciation" when he thinks of it. The term "pride", on the other hand, has taken on a "funny connotation". Because: "Just because I'm proud of something doesn't mean I have to feel better than someone else. I am proud because I am making a contribution. You can't help where you were born. But you can do something, take part in activities, get involved in associations, roll up your sleeves and work together with thousands of other people. Even if it's just going to work and paying taxes."
Anyone who doesn't know South Tyrol and the sensitivities there and grew up in a multicultural bubble in Berlin-Mitte will naturally find it difficult to understand our texts.
Philipp Burger über seine Lyrics
For him, home is simply "a feeling of being at home". For many people, this is "already old-fashioned and backward-looking". Postscript: "Anyone who doesn't know South Tyrol and the sensitivities there and grew up in a multicultural bubble in Berlin-Mitte will naturally find it difficult to understand our lyrics."
Speaking of lyrics: Philipp Burger is also happy to make his lyrical outpourings about freedom, pride, friends and home available to artists from other genres. He wrote the Schmalzhadern "Nur ein Augenblick" for the Schlager superstars Kastelruther Spatzen, and the Amigos, Schlagerpiloten, Beatrice Egli and Nino de Angelo have also drawn on his extensive song collection.
Frei.Wild versus the press
Things are not as idyllic as in his hits when it comes to Frei.Wild's relationship with the press. Relationship status: complicated. In 2013, the band even launched its own media portal to counteract the allegedly biased reporting.
The singing farmer brushes aside the accusation that he demands a differentiated approach to his work, but at the same time accuses the media of being aligned and belonging to an indefinable mainstream with a wave of his hand. "There's not a single post of ours from the last ten years - okay, five years is better - in which we talk about 'the' media," says Burger. "I make a point of saying that there is no such thing as 'the' media, there are such and such people everywhere. Just like in every family."
He takes a deep breath, followed by a big but: "It's noticeable that certain political positions are more in the hearts of journalists than others. The pendulum is not exactly in the middle. I think that most of the media are very left-wing. That's okay as long as you recognize that there are other people with other sensitivities."
Such sentences are part of Philipp Burger's standard repertoire. The left-wing media who are against him. The music industry that ostracizes his band. The moralizers who are really just hypocrites. The powerful against the little people. The Frei.Wild frontman has been spinning this "us against the rest" narrative for years, and with verve. He clearly relishes his role as a troublemaker who enjoys swimming upstream - and his fans love him for it.
Politicians also get their fair share of flack. "The corridor of opinion has become narrower. Arguments are no longer accepted, they're immediately attacked," Burger rants. The tone has deteriorated in recent years and good manners have disappeared.
The whole left/right thinking is "nonsense": "There are things where common sense - or the heart - know exactly what is good and what is wrong. Whether that's left or right doesn't interest me." As long as something is "within a democratic framework that feels good at heart and does not despise humanity", there must be room for every opinion.
"I am not a friend of the party system"
Burger says that he cannot identify with any party. Neither with the South Tyrolean Freedom Party nor the FPÖ or the AFD. "I'm not a friend of the party system, to be honest," says the musician. "I would prefer to be able to vote for a person. There are many parties from which I would choose a good politician, I would like that."
Burger also has explanations for the rise of the aforementioned right-wing parties: a lack of willingness to talk and exclusion. "Certain parties would never have achieved the strength they have if people had sought to talk to them and not demonized them," says the South Tyrolean. The problem is that people "who only like some of a party's content are immediately ostracized and put in a corner", even though they may not identify with the party ideology. Burger's conclusion: "These people then say: 'Then I'll show you and vote for this party all the more'."
In general, our society suffers from a lack of willingness to talk. There is a lack of willingness to stand by one's opinion and discuss it openly with people who think differently: "We are so afraid to talk to people who could potentially do you harm. Whether it's at a table, in a podcast or on a TV show. There is a lack of self-confidence. You often hear the phrase: 'Don't let anyone see you at a table with this or that'." But that's "nonsense": "If we don't talk to each other, nothing will change."
Leipzig Book Fair tried to disinvite him
Regardless of how you feel about Burger, people would rather talk about him and his band than with him. The Leipzig Book Fair recently tried to uninvite him at short notice. The controversial man was supposed to read from his autobiography "Freiheit mit Narben" and talk about his transformation.
However, other authors anonymously threatened to boycott the event if the Frei.Wild singer was offered a platform. When the media got wind of the story, the organizers rowed back and offered Burger the opportunity to perform in a separate hall. Burger: "We then gave a concert there that was sold out in ten minutes."
In the end, it was "stupid" to disinvite him: "There was no reason at all. The theater could have been avoided." He would have liked to sit down at a table with the writers who felt threatened by his participation. But it was not to be. At this point, the multi-talent can't help but grin a little: "It has to rumble a little when you make rock music."
Philipp Burger has big plans for this year, a new Frei.Wild album is planned. The first four songs are finished, recorded as always in the farm's own recording studio. The album will also include "Nie wieder", a pre-release single released in mid-December that deals with the rampant anti-Semitism. The song was inspired by the experiences of an acquaintance who lives with his Jewish wife in Berlin: "She didn't dare go out on the street for weeks and even took the children out of school. It's unbelievable what's happening at the moment."
The irony of Frei.Wild, of all bands, being the only ones to deal with the issue of hatred towards Jews artistically is not lost on Burger: "What's crazy is that all the other bands kept their mouths shut and we were the only ones who did something musically."
Once again, he couldn't please anyone with this number. For the fans, "Nie wieder" is proof of the noble sentiments of their heroes, for the critics it is nothing more than cynical ingratiation cast in song form.
In the end, it is as it usually is: Philipp Burger sits between all the chairs - and enjoys it.
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