Are you also a believer in Tagesschau?

If you look closely, you will find the five mini cameras that the secret service installed: The signpost to the “Peace Festival”

What is democracy? And does it need a “firewall”? The participants in a panel discussion at the so-called Magdeburg Peace Festival, which has been held annually since 2020 and this time took place from September 3rd to 6th, asked themselves such profound questions. It was windy and rainy, but there were still around 100 participants on the dreary event site. Almost all the seats on the beer benches in the tent were already occupied when the discussion began. On stage it quickly became clear what the majority of guests thought of a “firewall” against the AfD: nothing. “The only person who needs a firewall is someone whose arguments can be easily refuted,” says Florian Pfaff, a former major in the Bundeswehr who briefly gained notoriety in the early noughties because, in protest against the Iraq war, he was subjected to disciplinary proceedings for disobeying orders and disobedience, which were ultimately dropped. Democracy means allowing opinions to collide so that the better one wins, just like in business, said Pfaff. There was loud clapping in the audience.

Mustafa Groener, who won one of the three direct mandates that did not go to the AfD in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt as a Left Party candidate, saw it differently. You have to talk to AfD voters, but not to the party's officials and elected officials. "The AfD is an inhumane party that doesn't want people like me in its country." When Groener wanted to elaborate, Diether Dehm, a former Bundestag member of the Left Party who was sitting in the audience, interrupted him: "There is no statement from the AfD about remigrating people like you. I read the election manifesto and found no such wording. It's all just scaremongering." There was loud applause for Dehm from the audience, but also opposition. One participant chimed in: "I read the AfD program and it scares me." If people like Mustafa felt attacked, then that should be heard, she said. Meanwhile, the audience became restless, the moderator seemed overwhelmed, but then intervened and asked Groener and the participant who had confirmed his comments to leave the tent and continue the discussion outside. Groener eventually left the podium and never returned.

On the other hand, a workshop that took place in an open tent on the lakeshore in the afternoon seemed less political: about a dozen people sat in a circle, hugging each other and gently rocking back and forth to singing bowl music.

The tension that existed during the panel seemed to dissipate shortly after it ended as participants made their way outside to the festival grounds.

One of the stalls on site sold handmade soap, essential oils and herbal salts. The saleswoman gave the festival visitors tips on homeopathy and alternative medicine, and later in the evening there was also a guided “herb hike” through the campsite. A few meters away, at the book table on which a cash register was set up - payment was based on trust - works by Hannah Arendt lay next to books that criticize the Covid-19 protective measures and question the existence of the virus. You could see a number of festival visitors wearing buttons with slogans like “Get out of the WHO”. Other pins featured doves of peace or an emblem showing the German and Russian flags. One visitor wore a sweater with the inscription “No War – No to the Bundeswehr.” On the other hand, a workshop that took place in an open tent on the lakeshore in the afternoon seemed less political: about a dozen people sat in a circle, hugging each other and gently rocking back and forth to singing bowl music.

In the late afternoon the main program continued with the lecture “The Secret Service Media Complex”. Diether Dehm and Martin Schwab appeared as speakers. The latter is a legal scholar and professor at the University of Bielefeld, best known as the defender of some of the defendants in the trial against the Reich Citizens' Troupe around Heinrich Prinz Reuß. It was learned, for example, that public broadcasting is an instrument of the secret service and security authorities that serves to control public debate. It was the same when his clients were arrested in the Reuss trial, said Schwab: "Of course the ARD gets notice in advance, that was the case with Prinz Reuß and with Compact too." Diether Dehm described what he thought would happen if intelligence information was systematically passed on to the "Tagesschau". The recent departures from the BSW in Thuringia are also “a tailor-made effort by the secret services.” At the end there were questions from the audience as to how the “Tagesschau believers” could be reached on the topics that were being discussed today. The audience also seemed to feel superior and in possession of exclusive knowledge. For the “daily news believers” for whom the dark machinations of the secret services remain hidden, all that is left is condescension.

When the rain ended in the evening and the sun was already low over the campsite, the end of the evening began on the festival stage. Accompanying themselves with an acoustic guitar, someone recited an “Ode to Friedrich Merz.” The song was probably intended to be critical, possibly ironic. The refrain was about war and peace: "And in 20 years we will see where his monuments are between Kiev and Kiel."