Video: German Police Probe 'Racist' Chants on Vacation Island, Chancellor Scholz Reacts

A viral video of German partygoers chanting racist song lyrics on the northern holiday island of Sylt has caused outrage in the country, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday branding it “disgusting”.

The video making rounds on social media shows a group of young people on a bar terrace singing the words “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out” to the tune of a popular dance track. In the short clip, one of them can also be seen making what appears to be a banned Hitler salute.

‘They are unacceptable’

“Such slogans are disgusting. They are unacceptable,” Scholz wrote on X on Friday. Police said they were investigating the incident, which is believed to have taken place at the weekend at a bar called Pony in the town of Kampen.

The revellers were singing to “L’Amour Toujours” by Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino, a popular party song that has regularly been co-opted by right-wing extremists in Germany in recent months. The bar posted a statement on its website and Instagram account saying it was “deeply shocked” by “this disgusting behaviour”.

“We distance ourselves from all forms of racism and discrimination,” it said. The manager of the bar told Die Welt TV on Friday that five suspects had been identified and banned from the premises. He added that the bar would no longer play the song in future and advised other bar owners to do the same.

In an interview with the Funke media group, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the incident a “disgrace for Germany”, denouncing the “creeping normalisation” of racism.

Sylt is a fashionable holiday destination for affluent Germans and was chosen by Finance Minister Christian Lindner for his wedding in 2022. Tickets to the party shown in the video cost 150 euros, according to the Bild daily, which also published a photo of the bar with several Porsches lined up outside.

(With agency inputs)