Waters’ management said the artist “believes that if left unchallenged, this blatant attempt to silence him could have serious and far-reaching ramifications for artists and activists around the world.” The cancellation of the concerts was “unconstitutional” and “unjustified” because they were “based on the false accusation that Roger Waters was anti-Semitic, which he is not”.
The 79-year-old has “directed his lawyers to immediately take all necessary steps to overturn this unjustified decision and to ensure that his fundamental human right to freedom of expression is protected,” the statement said, which referred to the Cologne law firm Höcker. Ticket sales for the concerts in Frankfurt and Munich on Waters’ website continued on Wednesday.
At the end of February, the Hessian state government and the city of Frankfurt announced that they would cancel a Roger Waters concert planned for May 28 in the Frankfurt Festhalle. As “one of the most far-reaching anti-Semites in the world,” Waters has repeatedly called for a cultural boycott of Israel and drawn comparisons to South Africa’s apartheid regime, it said in justification.
As part of his current European tour, Waters also wants to appear in Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin and Munich in May. There are also debates about it. Several initiatives and politicians are calling for the concerts to be canceled.
In Munich, a decision by the city council to cancel the concert planned for May 21 in the Olympiahalle was postponed to March 22, according to media reports.
However, the governing coalition of the parties Die Grünen – Rosa Liste and SPD/Volt published a position in which they called on the operators of the Olympiahalle to cancel the contract for the concert. Should this not be possible, possible statements by Waters at the concert “which are contrary to the values of the state capital Munich” should be punished with contractual penalties or the concert being abandoned.
The city of Frankfurt had explained that as part of Waters’ “The Wall Live Tour” from 2010 to 2013, a balloon in the shape of a pig with images of the Star of David and several company logos was part of his stage show at more than 200 concerts. In addition, he was repeatedly noticed because of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
According to the Frankfurt city administration, the planned location of the concert also caused a stir. In the days after the November pogroms of 1938, 3,000 Jewish men from Frankfurt and the surrounding area were brought to the festival hall, abused and later deported to concentration camps. “The magistrate therefore feels called upon to send a clear signal against anti-Semitism that is supported by society as a whole,” the city said at the end of February.
Waters was recently criticized for statements about the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. In February, he attended a UN Security Council meeting on the Ukraine war at Russia’s invitation and said in a video address that the Russian attack on Ukraine was “not unprovoked”.
In September, the musician had already accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj of “extreme nationalism”. The Polish city of Kraków then canceled planned concerts and declared Waters an undesirable person.
