Election madness in Bizarro Berlin

Anti-American resentment, nationalism and kitsch, all in just one picture: election poster in Berlin

There will be elections in Berlin soon, but instead of seeking votes, the parties are seeking pity for the fact that they no longer have any idea what they should actually do and why. A walk through the streets full of posters is like a journey into a grotesque mirror universe in which everything is upside down and nothing makes sense anymore.

The SPD has given up all hope. Their top candidate, Steffen Krach, looks at you from the large poster so grimly and sourly, as if parliament had just rejected war loans. The reason given is almost as bad: "The rent madness ends now." A tragedy: The SPD, which has been in government responsibility in Berlin since the fall of the Berlin Wall, as they say, has been in government responsibility with great effort and persistence, putting an end to the cheap rents and social housing that was once widespread here and bravely defied the referendum "Expropriate German housing and the like." Now, abandoned by the will to live, she is posting a preemptive death lament about her political legacy, the rent madness. According to surveys, it is unlikely that it will manage to fall below five percent in this election and finally put all the misery behind it. The SPD doesn't even want to succeed in failure.

This is also true: despite all the mistakes the leader regrettably made - the economy did brilliantly under his government.

The CDU top candidate Stefan Evers, on the other hand, shows how not to let your good mood be spoiled. His poster bears the desperate plea: "Someone has to be sensible." But Evers crosses his arms intransigently and acts as if he hadn't heard the call; With an absent smile he looks into the distance, to the far right. The CDU will continue to confidently ignore the demands of reason, which it has always decried as communist. The Greens are trying to be brutally honest. Their "Plan for Berlin" is: "No promises." The so-called core brand of the Greens has always been to know better, but in the end still vote for the wrong thing with a heavy heart out of political responsibility; They are indeed a party from which one cannot expect anything. The grammatically daring campaign motto “Get out of the backwards” makes it clear where we are headed: Today we are on the brink, tomorrow we will be a big step further.

Nobody wants to leave the love of the fatherland and agitation against immigrants to the right-wing extremists for a long time, but the FDP is the first party on this side of the “firewall” that is also implementing the remembrance policy change demanded by the AfD. She postulates: »Business is good. Everything's fine." Because that's also true: Despite all the mistakes that the Führer unfortunately made - the economy was doing brilliantly under his government.

A poster from the AfD gives us something to think about: “Migration needs borders.” That’s actually true: without borders, no border crossing; The easiest way to prevent immigration is to abolish the borders that make it possible. Germany finally has no borders: Can the far left and the far right agree on this noble goal?

The BSW boldly proclaims: “Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism.” It also depicts a crying girl against the backdrop of a destroyed city. Berlin has long since been rebuilt, but it is clear to the BSW freedom fighters: If the "dangerously honest" party does as well in the election as the Israel-critical Hamas did in Gaza in 2006, the Israeli military, known for its disproportionate violence, will soon turn Berlin into a field of rubble. It remains to be seen whether the BSW will continue its courageous campaign against censorship in the final phase of the election campaign with "Criticism of women is not sexism", "Criticism of disabled people is not ableism" and "Criticism of non-Aryans is not racism".

The only party that is attempting tough provocation in Berlin is Volt. Insulting all local patriotism, she posted a poster: "Freedom is the most beautiful city in the world." Freedom, once part of the Sudetenland Reichsgau, has been officially called Svoboda nad Úpou since 1945 and is now part of the Czech Republic. The fact that Volt presents this small town of around 2,000 inhabitants as a model for Berlin must be a hidden reference to the meaning of their enigmatic campaign motto "Unf*ck Berlin": The capital is apparently to be returned to a state of virginity by encouraging all immigrants to remigrate to Swabia, or wherever else they may come from, so that the last few original Berliners have the city to themselves again. The housing crisis would be solved in one fell swoop. The Left Party's posters are traditionally in a class of their own. This time too they are so boring and dull that the dull feeling they leave in the head defies any verbalization.

The most beautiful, touching and funny election poster in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany was brought into the world almost ten years ago by Matthias Ilgen, SPD Bundestag candidate for the North Frisia constituency. It shows Ilgen swinging the ax towards a tree, on the trunk of which Donald Trump's ass face magically appears. Above it is the slogan: “America First? Ilgen Förster!” In a strange sense, the combination of the red jacket and italicized zero sentences (“For a better Europe!”) is beautiful, while the self-forgetful, euphoric expression on the Social Democrat’s face as he swings the ax is funny. The huge gap between world politics and one's own provincialism, which is expressed in every detail of the picture, is touching.

It will be difficult to surpass the Ilgen Förster poster. But the parties in the Berlin election campaign are making an enormous effort, that much can be said. The high level of humor of the North Frisian SPD candidate remains unmatched, but here too, mistakes are evident. This can be a seemingly sad detail, such as the completely resigned expression on the face of the Left Party candidate Ahmed Abed, who looks melancholy down at the voters from the poster, as if he knew that Berlin was already lost.

The CDU is excited and seems to be trying to steal voters from the AfD by suggesting that they are just as firmly on the right, just in a bourgeois way and without constitutional protection.

On the other hand, the CDU, which seems to be trying to steal voters from the AfD by suggesting that they are just as firmly on the right, is just on the heels of a bourgeois approach and without constitutional protection, is on the move. The AfD wants “Berlin. Sure. Do”, the three points clearly promise that no faxing should be done here, but rather a short process. The CDU counters somewhat softly with “Berlin will be safe” and “More video surveillance”.

Obviously, more agency energy went into brainstorming on the topics of “left-green sleaze” and “foreigners.” “There is a “clean” quality inherent in every beginning,” is the message. The CDU's top candidate, Stefan Evers, looks both energetically and movedly from the poster into a future he envisions: a cityscape without vomit and "Sterni" bottle shards on the sidewalks. When it comes to the topic of education policy, someone tried very hard and winked heavily during the pitch: "Goethe's fist instead of a left hook." Here, the literary-historical reference conceals the at least preconscious desire to polish the face of one's political opponent.

Meanwhile, like Matthias Ilgen, he is focusing on global politics, at least in the Left Party stronghold of Berlin, and is advertising "Freedom for Palestine" without, however, revealing how far the possibilities are to influence the Israel-Palestine conflict from the Berlin House of Representatives. Doesn't matter. The BSW is participating and has mounted a Palestinian child in front of a field of rubble on one of its clearly AI-generated posters and added the sentence “Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism.” That's right, purely semantically. Don't criticize, at least not per se, but the poster does. The unbridgeable distance between world events and one's own provinciality is once again maximized by what is perhaps the most beautiful poster of the Berlin election campaign from an aesthetic point of view, which also comes from the BSW: It shows a dachshund with a blank stare and a German flag tied around the dog's neck, and the Star-Spangled Banner hanging on a leash. Next to it you can read the worryingly stupid promise: “Less Washington. More Germany.«

The German liberals pale in comparison. While the FDP routinely spreads zero sentences and is now really tired of it ("If you want freedom, you have to choose freedom," but also "Economy is good. Everything is good.") and the new generation in the form of the Volt party has opted for borderline debility ("Economy is made of courage"), the SPD is trying with sympathy and sexiness and its top candidate Steffen Krach. He looks engagingly friendly and also a bit mischievous, but in the combination of standard attractiveness and funny, suggestive slogan ("Do you want to go with me?") he radiates something latently Ted Bundy-like.

On occasions when action and concreteness are required, Krach narrows his eyes, determined to take action. The accompanying slogan is: “Stop rent madness.” The question "Why now?" - after around 35 years of SPD government and government participation in Berlin - is very obvious to the viewer who hasn't already had their eyes peeled by all the nonsense. In any case, Ahmed Abed has hung the only true poster of this year's election campaign on the suffering streets of Berlin.