Roger Waters is facing backlash, and potential legal action, after donning a Nazi-inspired costume during his May 17 show in Berlin, Germany.
The Pink Floyd musician is under investigation by police after wearing an SS-style uniform during a performance of the song In The Flesh at the Mercedes-Benz Arena last week.
Though Waters has long claimed to use fascist-inspired imagery as a critique, evoking Nazi symbols or gestures is a crime in Germany.
Playing the villain from Floyd’s 1982 film The Wall, Waters appeared onstage with sunglasses, a swastika-inspired armband and a fake rifle. In place of the Third Reich symbol was a pair of crossed hammers, however.
While an inflatable pig emblazoned with fascist-looking graffiti and a Star of David floated above the crowd, stadium screens flashed the names of Holocaust victim Anne Frank; Masha Amini, a woman who died after being detained by Iran’s “morality police” last September; George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police in May 2020; and Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who was killed while covering violence in the West Bank earlier this month.
Waters, a longtime critic of Israel and supporter of the BDS movement, was called out for his show by the nation’s official Twitter account on Thursday.
The account shared images from the concert and wrote, “Good morning to every one but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
Following the concert, Berlin’s chief police inspector told the media his department had “initiated a criminal investigation procedure regarding the suspicion of incitement” at the show.
“The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace,” he reportedly told Jewish News.
HuffPost has reached out to the Wish You Were Here rocker’s team for comment.
Waters is scheduled to play in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 28, where he’s almost guaranteed to use the same setup.
Magistrates for the city unsuccessfully petitioned to have the concert cancelled in April, calling the musician “one of the most widely known anti-Semites in the world”.
A court ruled in Waters’ favour, claiming the show does “not glorify or relativise the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology”.