Jan Böhmermann
Jan Böhmermann () (born 23 February 1981) is a German satirist, journalist, podcast, and television host. He also worked as a writer, producer, radio host, and is best known for his activism through publicity stunts. Early life and education. Böhmermann was born and raised in Bremen. His mother had immigrated to Germany in the early 1970s, and was part of the German minority in Poland. His father died from leukemia when Böhmermann was 17 years old. Even though he remains silent about his private life, it is known that he has multiple children. He served as a lay judge  at the local court of Cologne. Career. In 1997, he gained his first journalistic experience at ""Die Norddeutsche"", a local edition of Bremen's daily newspapers. In 1999, he began working as a moderator and reporter at ""Radio Bremen"". He applied to three drama schools, was rejected every time, and a fourth time successfully at the Hanover Drama School, where he did not compete. He also dropped out of his studies at the University of Cologne in history, sociology, and theater, film, and television studies. In 2004, he moved to 1Live on WDR as a presenter and comedian. There he  invented the column ""Lukas' Tagebuch" (Lukas' Diary)," a parody of the Cologne professional soccer player Lukas Podolski. Podolski sued against it without success and refused interview requests from ARD during the 2006 World Cup. For the 2008 European Soccer-Championship, Böhmermann launched the podcast ""Pod-Olski - Der EM-Podcast von Lukas"", which made it to the top of the iTunes podcast charts. In the follow-up series "Lukas' WG," Böhmermann moved his main character into a shared apartment with the mascot of 1. FC Köln, billy goat "Hennes". In 2007, WDR television broadcast Böhmermann's six-part comedy show "Echt  Böhmermann". In January 2009, Böhmermann founded the ""First Turkish Carnival Club of Germany (1st TKVD)"" as part of a satirical action for the RTL program "TV-Helden". This action inspired a group of Turkish carnivalists from Dortmund to found a real first Turkish carnival club. The program "TV-Helden" was awarded the 2009 German Television Prize in the category ""Best Comedy Program"." The program was also awarded the German Television Award. In the same year, Böhmermann published his first book ""Alles, alles über Deutschland - Halbwissen kompakt"". From 2009, Böhmermann was a member of the ensemble of Harald Schmidt's program  on ARD. Until 2011, the radio station 1Live ran the monthly satire and entertainment program ""Die ganz große Jan Böhmermann Radioschau"". In 2010, Böhmermann joined "Lateline" and wrote the column "Gott fragt, Böhmermann antwortet (God asks, Böhmermann answers)" for the youth edition of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" newspaper. Until April 2011, he hosted "Beeck & Böhmermann" on 1Live together with Simon Beeck. Starting in January 2011, Böhmermann toured Germany for several weeks with Klaas Heufer-Umlauf with the satirical improv cabaret show ""Zwei alte Hasen erzählen von früher"". With Heufer-Umlauf, Böhmermann hosted a bi-weekly show on Radio Eins from November  2011 to September 2012 under the same title. Since Heufer-Umlauf's departure, he has hosted the show with singer-songwriter Olli Schulz. Initially under the new title ""Joko und Klaas mit Olli und Jan"", then under the title ""Sanft & Sorgfältig"". From March 2013, Schulz and Böhmermann weekly went on air. Since May 2014, "Sanft & Sorgfältig" was broadcast on Sundays by five other radio stations (Bremen Vier, Dasding, N-Joy, Puls and You FM) in addition to Radio Eins. In April 2016, Böhmermann announced that he would not continue the show. He rejected a connection with the Böhmermann-Erdogan affair . From September 2011 until the cancellation of the show, Böhmermann was on the team of the "Harald Schmidt Show" on Sat.1. In 2019, Harald Schmidt said of Böhmermann: "I knew early on that Böhmermann would never make it as a moderator. But that he would make it very far as a riot act, I also knew." Charlotte Roche and Jan Böhmermann at the 2012 German Television Awards. The talk show "Roche & Böhmermann" (co-hosted with Charlotte Roche) was the first broadcast on ZDFkultur on 4 March 2012. After two seasons, the last edition was shown in October 2012. In January  2013, ZDF announced that there would be no continuation of the show due to disagreements between those involved. In November and December 2012, he went on tour with "Lateline" through the cities of Bremen, Frankfurt, Baden-Baden, Magdeburg, and Hanover. The shows were broadcast live on "EinsPlus". Starting in April 2013, a second season with seven shows ran live from the Weserhaus in Bremen. The third season with five more shows was broadcast starting in November 2013. Together with Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, Böhmermann recorded the radio play "Förderschulklassenfahrt", which was continued in 2014 with the title "Förderschulklassenfahrt 2 - Fünf Feinde  und der Proletenhund". In October 2013, Das Erste broadcast the program "16 × Germany", in which each German state was covered in 15-minute features. The focus was left to the authors. Böhmermann devoted himself to his hometown of Bremen. With his documentary-like satire, "audience and contributors were taken for a ride," as the media service "Kressreport" criticized. A museum expert interviewed by Böhmermann was deceived about the satirical intentions, and the film team put an invective into the mouth of a city hall doorman without consultation. Böhmermann completely invented two police officers who allegedly obstructed the filming and  an alleged professor, without this being recognizable to the viewers. The responsible broadcaster, "Radio Bremen", defended Böhmermann's film as a mockumentary that "mercilessly uses and exaggerates the means of the documentary." From October 2013 to December 2019, he hosted the political-satirical late-night show "Neo Magazin" on ZDFneo. It was, like Roche & Böhmermann, produced by "bildundtonfabrik". ZDF has shown a repeat of the show on Friday nights since February 2015, since then named "addition Royale. Starting in March 2014, Böhmermann went on tour in Germany with his stage program ""Schlimmer als Jan Böhmermann"", in which he preserves jokes  and one-liners from his previous shows and publications. In February 2014, the television station RTL announced that it would be testing ""Was wäre wenn?"", a new comedy program with Böhmermann, Palina Rojinski, Katrin Bauerfeind and Jan Köppen. A pilot had been made back in 2012, and the first four episodes were recorded in March 2014 at the nobeo studios in Hürth. The first episode was broadcast on 28 August 2014 on RTL. The series was nominated in the category Comedy for the German Television Award 2014. Böhmermann was the author of the show "Die unwahrscheinlichen Ereignisse im Leben  von ..." ("the unlikely events in the life of ..."), which, like his own show, was produced by bildundtonfabrik. The show features a celebrity guest with sketches and live performances. On 20 July 2014, the first episode aired on WDR with guest Frank Elstner. In August 2015, Böhmermann and Olli Schulz announced in "Neo Magazin Royale" that they would produce a new edition of "Roche & Böhmermann" called "Schulz & Böhmermann" broadcast on ZDFneo starting on 10 January 2016. The texts introducing the invited guests were written and spoken by Sibylle Berg. Ten more episodes followed in 2017, but at the end of the  year, "Schulz & Böhmermann" was discontinued due to too low viewer numbers. Since 15 May 2016, Schulz and Böhmermann have jointly hosted the podcast "Fest & Flauschig" as a successor to their former show "Sanft & Sorgfältig" on Radio Eins. It is produced for Spotify and appeared weekly until early 2020. After 2020, when the podcast was expanded to twice weekly, Böhmermann and Schulz announced in the 18 March 2020 episode that due to the COVID-19 pandemic they would indefinitely release a shorter "Fest und Flauschig: Zuhause" podcast daily, i.e. from Tuesday to Friday and in addition to their regular Sunday podcast. These  special shows aired in a weekday format from 26 March to 24 April. In 2018, it was the most-streamed Spotify podcast worldwide. On 24 April 2017, Böhmermann became the first German comedian to guest on the U.S. talk show "Late Night". Böhmermann advocated for the welfare of refugees in quite a few shows and repeatedly criticized European refugee policies. He particularly dislikes the bans, criminalization attempts, and threatened prosecution of private sea rescue services. In the case of the arrest of German captain Claus-Peter Reisch and the seizure of the "Lifeline" sea rescue ship in Malta in July  2018, Böhmermann launched a fundraising campaign and collected around 200,000 euros in favor of a legal aid fund. Also on the occasion of the arrest of German sea rescue captain Carola Rackete in Italy at the end of June 2019, Böhmermann, together with the presenter Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, called for donations for her and the Sea-Watch association. Within a few days, almost one million euros was collected. On 29 August 2019, Böhmermann announced in a satirical broadcast that he wanted to become SPD party chairman. A month later, he joined the party. Controversies. Section::::"V for Varoufakis" video, 2015. In  February 2015, Böhmermann's late-night show "Neo Magazin Royale" created the song and music video ""V for Varoufakis"". The title references "V for Vendetta", which introduced the Guy Fawkes mask as a symbol of rebellion. In addition to poking fun at Germans generally, the video explored the German fascination with Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who is regarded as articulate, physically attractive and having a stylish, if unconventional fashion sense, while also portraying Greece's dependence on German money during the Greek government-debt crisis. Unlike most content on the ZDF program "Neo Magazin Royale", the song is in  English and not in German. The conclusion of the video shows an actual clip of Varoufakis in which he says "and stick the finger to Germany, and say 'well, you can now solve this problem for yourself'. Right?" The clip shows Varoufakis giving the finger, a gesture called "Stinkefinger" in German. This clip had been taken out of context: Varoufakis had used a rhetorical example of what not to do. After TV host Günther Jauch confronted Varoufakis with the video clip in an interview (still out of context), German news media made the issue of Varoufakis giving Germany the finger  into a minor scandal. The "New York Times" ran an article with the title "German Media Want Greek Finance Minister's Head Over 'Fingergate'". Varoufakis himself briefly claimed that the video must have been doctored. "NZZ am Sonntag" called for Günther Jauch to be fired for bad journalism. In response to the claims of the middle finger being either fake or real, Böhmermann's "Neo Magazine Royale" created a false version of the video clip labelled "#varoufake", which claimed to show that Varoufakis had not given the finger, and that the clip "Neo Magazine Royale" had used in ""V for  Varoufakis"" was indeed a fabrication. At 8:10 in the video, Böhmermann says the following: This passage of the #varoufake video caused confusion, BBC interpreted it as an admittal that the video in which the finger was given was the original footage. However, this quote is more likely meant to say that the editors of Günther Jauch did not edit the footage, because as explained in the rest of the video, the editors of "NEO Magazine Royal" edited it. The media were unclear as to which version was unmanipulated, and ZDF had to officially state that "Neo Magazin Royale" is satire  and should not be taken at face value. Varoufakis himself praised Böhmermann's mockery of the German media on Twitter, writing "@janboehm Humour, satire & self deprecation are great solvents of blind nationalism. We politicians need you badly." Böhmermann won a Grimme-Preis award for the manipulated finger video. Erdogan satire, 2016. Mid March, the German political satire TV show "extra 3" aired a critical song about Erdogan, which led to protests of the Turkish government. Two weeks later, on March 31, 2016 Böhmermann presented a poem named ""Schmähkritik"" ("abusive criticism") about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his satire show  Neo Magazin Royale on the ZDF public channel. Afterwards, twenty people lodged a complaint. Proceedings instituted by the prosecutor's office for "insulting of organs and representatives of foreign states" were based on principles §103 and §104 in the German penal code. In the satire, Böhmermann called Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan "the man who beats girls", and said that Erdogan loved to "fuck goats and suppress minorities, kick Kurds, hit Christians, and watch child pornography." Much of the rest of the poem was devoted to associating Erdogan with various less accepted forms of sexuality. Böhmermann deliberately played with the  limits of satire and said several times that this form of abusive criticism was not allowed in Germany. The ZDF channel distanced itself from the poem and cut it out of the program which can be seen in its internet archives ""Mediathek."" After a phone call with the Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised the poem as "intentionally hurtful" ("bewusst verletzend"), and prosecutors in Mainz planned to consult the federal Justice Ministry on whether to launch criminal proceedings. The Turkish government released a verbal note in which it demanded the criminal prosecution of Böhmermann. According to the  law, the government has to approve the demand for criminal prosecution by a foreign government, before criminal proceedings can be started because of §103/104 StGB. Therefore Angela Merkel accepted the request from Turkey to seek his prosecution, but stressed that the acceptance was not due to the merits of the prosecution case. In addition, Erdogan himself made a complaint against Böhmermann as a private person because of the alleged insult. The vice minister president of Turkey, Numan Kurtulmus, called the poem a "serious crime against humanity". On 10 April 2021 the CEO of publishing house Axel Springer SE, Mathias Döpfner , made a plea for "solidarity with Jan Böhmermann". He compared Böhmermann's poem to the works of Martin Kippenberger. He also referenced Michel Houellebecq's "Submission" and accused the German government of kowtowing to the Turks. The former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote on Twitter: "Europe first lost its soul (agreement with Turkey on refugees), now it is losing its humour. Hands off @janboehm!" More than 100,000 people signed a petition for Böhmermann at Change.org. In a satirical letter to president Erdogan, the mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer (Alliance 90/The Greens), assured Erdogan his "solidarity" and demanded the  extradition of Böhmermann to Turkey. "Cut off Böhmermann's testicles, so he never makes fun of presidents with a short dick again", he wrote. The letter is signed "most respectfully, Boris Palmer". An April 2016 YouGov poll revealed, that a majority of the Germans supported Böhmermanns position. 48 percent of the pollees found the poem appropriate, 29 percent view it as undue. A great majority (66 percent) opposed the deletion of the poem on the ZDF website as well as Merkel's criticism of the poem as "intentionally hurtful" (68 percent). Only 15% support a criminal investigation, with 77% against . In April 2016 it was reported that Böhmermann was under police protection, because he was threatened by supporters of Erdogan. The filming of the upcoming edition of "Neo Magazin Royale" was cancelled due to "massive media reporting and the focus on the programme and the presenter". Böhmermann had also cancelled his radio show "Sanft & Sorgfältig" on Sunday and his appearance at the Grimme Awards, where he was awarded for his Varoufakis video. In October 2016, prosecutors dropped the case, saying they had not found sufficient evidence to continue the inquiry against Boehmermann. In 2018, the rarely used paragraph 103 of  Germany's penal code, which criminalized insults against foreign heads of state, under which Böhmermann was indicted, was subsequently abolished. Other controversies. On 25 October 2018, a media controversy began over an anonymized person in the book "Gegen Judenhass" by Oliver Polak. Polak wrote of a "television presenter" who, together with others, expressed anti-Semitic stereotypes such as disgust at the physical touch of Jewish people during a comedic stage performance. This referred to Böhmermann. The latter explained, as did Serdar Somuncu, that the book excerpt had alluded to a roast that both had worked out and rehearsed together with  Polak eight years earlier; this had been about a humorous response to Thilo Sarrazin's book ""Deutschland schafft sich ab"". while appearing on the 6 May 2019 broadcast of the ORF program "Kulturmontag", Böhmermann was asked for his opinion on Thomas Bernhard's statement thta Austrians were "6.5 million debile and Tobsüchtige" calling for a leader figure, and that now the number has increased to "8 million debile" (the population at the time). Böhmermann responded with the provocation that the Federal Chancellor (Sebastian Kurz at the broadcast date) was a merely 32-year old "insurance salesman." Additionally, he called for  European unity and solidarity with the news journalist Armin Wolf, who had recently been strongly criticized by the then ruling party FPÖ. ORF editors immediately distanced themselves from Böhmermann's provocative statements, which prominent Austrian authors criticized in a joint statement as journalistic "self-censorship." In May 2019, the wake of the Ibiza affair, which led to the fall of Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, the breakup of the governing coalition and new elections, speculation arose that Böhmermann could be behind the video recordings, as he had already publicly alluded to their content before they became known. A spokesperson  for Böhmermann and ZDF stated that Böhmermann had known about the video in advance already in April at the presentation of the Austrian TV prize Romy, Böhmermann alluded to the content of the recordings before they became known ("it may be that Austria will burn tomorrow"). He also posted a YouTube link to the "We're going to Ibiza" music video on Twitter on 19 May 2019, the day the scandal broke.