The truth: That's how it works backbench, no, People's Party!

"I'm particularly grateful for intelligent interjections, that's where my rhetorical talent comes into its own," snarls the Hanseatic with the razor-sharp side parting and the habit of an intellectual high-flyer. Of course, the obligatory menthol cigarette smolders in the ashtray on the lectern. The copy is perfect, every detail is correct.

On the large stage of a congress center in Dinslaken, Helmut Schmidt seems to have risen from the dead. The predominantly older audience is glued to the Social Democrat's every word. Some can recite all of his speeches by heart, others only remember the refrain “Get involved: Vote for Schmidt.” In the 1976 federal election, the SPD achieved 42.6 percent with this slogan, but still ended up behind the CDU/CSU.

“That’s how the People’s Party works,” whispers a grizzled comprehensive school principal who has come from East Westphalia especially for the tribute event “The Very Best of German Social Democracy”.

“Schmidt-Schnauze” is only the opening band this evening. Afterwards, faithful copies of stars such as Herbert Wehner and Johannes Rau interpret the most popular campaign hits from “Peace, Freedom, Socialism” to “Education for All” in front of 800 enthusiastic spectators. “I always liked doing something like that at the village disco when I was young,” says office clerk Doro Sievers from Wesel, remembering.

However, the tribute evening has nothing to do with the actually existing social democratic party. At the same time, the current chairman Lars Klingbeil speaks in the small hall of the congress center to a dozen or so moderately interested people about the difficulties of the coalition's work.

“No comment,” said the organizing district association tight-lipped when we asked the organizers about the much more successful nostalgia event. The problem does not only affect social democrats. Both popular parties play their new material in front of largely empty stands, while tribute parties like “AC/DC/DU” or “The Björn Engholm Experience” fill the town halls, especially in the old Federal Republic, with cover versions of old hits. With the a cappella troupe “Being Green” and the duo “Trampert & Ebermann”, even the first green tribute acts conjure up grassroots democratic feelings from the eighties.

Contemporary political artists are becoming less and less successful at spreading such feel-good vibes, even if they have long since consistently avoided awkward content such as the climate crisis or the rise of fascism. “I’m no longer being booked at all,” complains Rhineland-Palatinate CDU Prime Minister Gordon Schnieder. In fact, all venues in the state are occupied by the Helmut Kohl tribute act “The Great Oggersheimer,” which promises an “authentically conservative experience without a rude awakening” with a funny sidekick (“The pension is bad!”).

The phenomenon of tribute doubles is well known in the music business. The aging audience in the musical middle in particular almost only appreciates tried-and-tested content that is presented by interchangeable service providers with as few surprises as possible: newcomers hardly find an audience anymore, artistic developments are mercilessly punished. Even once-successful top acts now have to appear as imitations of themselves under humiliating corruptions such as “Fink Ployd” or “Müllermarius Hesternwagen”.

Even the Abba holograms are actually Swedes incarnate, needing to supplement their pensions after the band squandered their royalties on crazy concept albums about post-structuralism, thermodynamics and great tits.

However, the difference between original and copy is hardly relevant in late digital capitalism. What matters is not who is on stage, but who owns the trademark rights to the artists. Previously, the Toten Hosen belonged to the Diebels brewery and the candy manufacturer Storck (“Campino”), but now the washed-up band was sold to the Grim Reaper for an ice-cold Bommerlunder and two sandwiches.

Friedrich Merz also transferred all rights to his person and work to the investment company Blackrock years ago. The shy ex-politician is now breeding Shetland ponies at his stud farm in the Sauerland, while a hired band of actors are touring the Republic as Chancellor actors to play an old party playlist with the “most neoliberal from the nineties and today” in front of increasingly empty dance floors. The Merz fiasco is the result of a major misjudgment by his A&R and hedge fund managers: Nothing is as passé as yesterday's hot shit. Nostalgia only sets in when the smell of decay has disappeared. The neoliberal chancellor show “CDU pure” is therefore as hopeless in 2026 as the comeback attempts by VIVA moderators.

“Stefan Raab is so nineties,” says 80s girl Doro from Dinslaken when we show her a photo of the artist formally known as Friedrich Merz. During the break we met her and her husband Dieter again at the merch stand. “We like handmade, honest politics and credible personalities,” says the couple from Wesel, stocking up on cheap band shirts from Bangladesh. Doro buys one with the portrait of Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and the words “Who’s that Girl?”, while Dieter chooses his idol “Kurt Cobain Schumacher”.

The headliner of the evening is of course the Jesus Christ boomer star of German post-war democracy. When the Willy Brandt double sings “Dare more democracy” in the typically throaty intonation, lighters are waved and children are conceived against all biological probability. There is a hint of optimism in the air, perhaps even hope.

But at exactly 10:30 p.m. the spook is over. A cleaning crew is sweeping leaflets and open letters out of the hall; tomorrow the large hall in the Dinslaken congress center will be used again. Then the storm troupe plays “Alice & The Boys (from Brazil)” in front of a completely sold out house. Because nothing is currently as trendy on the German nostalgia market as the damn authentic tribute that the AfD is paying to National Socialism.