Michel Chevalier

16.04.2014 , 11:41 Uhr

Quite revealing the role that “the other” plays in the interviewee's account. Foreigners as refugees are rallied to and supported with pride. Foreigners as competition in one's own cultural field? Well, a definite wariness seems to kick in, then: “Dieses ganze Endzeitding mit Nick Cave (...), und dann auch noch alles auf Englisch… Da herrschte so ein 80er-Jahre-Gefühl, und ich wollte dringend ins Hier und Jetzt.”

The solution to this Verfremdung is apparently the embrace of Heimat and the German language. In the former case, Hamburg as a place where “jedenfalls waren dann ziemlich viele Leute Leute aus meiner Heimatgegend.” In the latter, the emergence of a “Hamburger Schule” of indie pop-music that made a point of its German language lyrics (a member of the group Tocotronic put it this way to me in 1995: “the best German groups sing in German”).

Yet it could be argued that exactly what made Hamburg interesting in the 90s were all the émigrés contributing to its subcultures and avant-gardes. The US labels Crypt and Amphetamine Reptile had locations on the Seilerstr, making Hamburg the arrival point for many touring bands. On the other end of the spectrum, György Ligeti and Sofia Gubaidulina were active composing and teaching in the city, and Marina Abramovic was teaching performance. From the interview, however, you'd never suspect such cultural internationalism in Hamburg at the time.

And in the present? La Hengst is rueful that “so viele Leute von außen nach Berlin ziehen und denen dann erst mal nicht so wichtig ist, was mit dem Viertel passiert, in dem sie gerade wohnen.”

This interview is a fine example of the many contradictions that play out when a self-proclaimed ethics of anti-racism is fused with tacit cultural chauvinism.