Saxony-Anhalt CDU enlists cabaret star Hallervorden for 'Art needs freedom' campaign tour

Photo: Matthias Gränzdörfer/imago

From Naumburg (Saale) — David Muschenich

Minister President Sven Schulze (CDU) peeks onto the stage once before it begins. The 112 seats of the theater in Naumburg are still empty. The cameras from ZDF, Deutsche Welle, and dpa are already set up. Through the closed door, a murmur of voices drifts into the theater hall; it starts in half an hour.

For the fourth time already, CDU top candidate Schulze and cabaret artist Dieter "Didi" Hallervorden are sharing a stage in this election campaign. As in Magdeburg, Halle, and Dessau, this final event in Naumburg is also sold out. But that's not why the small tour caused a nationwide stir. Instead of nice Palim-Palim sketches, Hallervorden criticized Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and his rearmament plans in a song in Saxony-Anhalt. Did that help the CDU?

Polls and the Campaign Trail

A few minutes before the doors open in Naumburg, Schulze speaks backstage in an interview about the current polls:

"At the moment, no one has a majority. I don't have one, and the main competitor – the AfD – doesn't have one either."

Shortly after, the audience streams to their seats. The evening is moderated, as at the other events, by Clara von Nathusius, federal board member of the Young Union and influencer.

Without much ado, Hallervorden begins to sing, as he did at the previous three events. However, this time it's not about war, unlike in Magdeburg, Halle, and Dessau. There, the 90-year-old Hallervorden had demanded, among other things, that Merz (CDU) should fight on the moon if he absolutely wanted to. "Stop the genocide in Gaza" was also visible in a video that Hallervorden played.

Criticism from the Federal CDU

Franziska Hoppermann, the new Secretary General of the federal CDU, then publicly distanced herself: "There is no genocide in Gaza."

Hallervorden replied that at the federal level, he would not campaign for the CDU either. But in Saxony-Anhalt, with Sven Schulze, it was different. For him, he wanted to throw "his small weight" into the balance to prevent the first AfD government in Germany.

Schulze, in turn, expressed irritation at the debate. Of course, he did not agree with Hallervorden on everything. But that wasn't the point. The title is "Art needs freedom, not art needs approval." And through an AfD government, precisely that artistic freedom in Saxony-Anhalt would be threatened.

Holding On in the Face of Headwinds

This time in Naumburg on the Saale, Hallervorden does not wish Chancellor Merz to the moon. Instead, it's about holding on in the face of headwinds.

"Being conformist, I always found terrible."

He changed the song to keep the debate with the federal CDU out of it, Hallervorden explains afterwards.

Moderator von Nathusius apparently likes that. The 31-year-old asks the two men about their memories of the GDR. Schulze was 10 years old when it ended. Nevertheless, he remembers how cautious his parents were back then. Hallervorden, born in Dessau, fled the GDR in the 50s, says:

"If I had said something substantial against Honecker, I would have ended up in prison. And if I say something against Merz today, I end up on television."

Schulze admits that the CDU has "never spoken about art in an election campaign" before. But now it is relevant.

"I never want it to be determined from the State Chancellery in Magdeburg what can be played here and what cannot."

As early as April, when the AfD's election program made the rounds, cultural institutions in Saxony-Anhalt warned of the political influence announced there. The national-authoritarian party wants to promote only patriotic culture, it