Haftpiefel shows that Germany loves art born of alienation – but not the people who create it music

If you want to understand the state of Germany in these last weeks of 2025, it is necessary to understand the meaning of two entries in the German dictionary: com.stadtbild and haftbefehl.

The first term technically means “cityscape”. But since Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered a speech in Brandenburg on October 14, it has taken on a new political meaning. “We have come a long way in terms of immigration, but of course we still have this problem in our society,” he said com.stadtbild“.

It was a very different record from his predecessor Angela Merkel, who once said she could not determine whether someone held a German passport “just by looking at them.” When asked to clarify his comments at a news conference a few days after his speech, Merz reiterated his position: “Ask your daughters” he told reporters what he meant — and declined to go into detail.

This ambiguous line has dominated political discourse in Germany for more than a month now. Public figures organized demonstrations and issued open letters rejecting what they considered a racist whistleblowing by the Chancellor. On political talk shows, politicians, actors and comedians rallied to Merz’s defense. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party celebrated the free PR ahead of next year’s regional elections, with the chancellor’s ambiguity leaving plenty of room to tie his words to their vision of “remigration”, a far-right concept of mass deportation that amounts to ethnic cleansing.

The discussion revealed something bigger: how Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats, who govern most of the country’s states, view Germans of color – not as citizens, but as aesthetic interventions in an idealized, sanitized vision of the German city. Party allies tried to brush off accusations of racism towards the chancellor, but they never made clear what Merz’s ideal cityscape looked like, or who exactly wouldn’t fit into it.

second word, Haftbihleevenly loaded. Literally means “arrest warrant”. But it’s also the stage name of Aykut Anhan, one of Germany’s most influential rappers. Haftbehl, the son of a Turkish mother and a Kurdish Zaza father, in Offenbach, Hesse, has built his career on brutal, honest, but also at times comedic depictions of crime, trauma and survival – in a language that fuses German, Turkish, Zazaki and English.

After nearly two years out of the public eye, Aanhan has resurfaced with the Netflix documentary “Babu – The Haftpiefel Story,” an unflinching account of addiction, familial trauma in migrant families, and mental illness in the upper echelons of the German music industry. It immediately jumped to the top of the Netflix charts in Germany, where it was praised for its filmmaking and complete honesty.

The success of the documentary is not surprising: in contrast to the UK or France, artists from marginalized communities are rare in the cultural mainstream in Germany, and Huftpfeil has long been one of the few, if not only, gangsta rappers embraced by the German cultural establishment while remaining rooted in marginalized communities. However, the attention the film attracted even overshadowed the controversy surrounding Merz’s “cityscape.” It is a significant coincidence: at the same moment that the ruling party defines belonging as an aesthetic issue—who visually fits into the German landscape—the nation is fascinated by the story of a man whose art was born entirely of exclusion.

It’s not hard to imagine that a character like Aykut Anhan — a former small-time trader from an urban area struggling with addiction and depression — is exactly the kind of person Mears sees. com.stadtbild The speech appears to be aimed at: The type of person who could be seen as a “problem” in the “cityscape” that could be solved by a greater number of asylum seeker deportations. The inhuman outlook in Merz’s choice of words is hidden behind language that suggests cleanliness and civic beauty.

This ideology has consequences. When people feel they are not wanted in the country they were born in, resentment toward the state follows. Haftbefehl embodies this feeling in his music. “Human values ​​don’t matter, only your shiny Mercedes,” he sings Depression in the ghetto (Depression in the Ghetto); “Fuck your integration, I’ll put a bullet straight through your skull,” he sings on the number 069 (named after the calling code for Offenbach and Frankfurt). Anhan manages to turn the despair of being seen as an alien into influential and highly profitable art through his alter ego. He even left his mark on the German language with the word zazaki Babu (“Leader” or “Leader”), made famous by his words, became the “Youth Word of the Year” in Germany in 2013.

Germany seems to love the art that is born from this alienation – but not necessarily the people who create it. The same pattern of aesthetic appreciation while erasing creators appears elsewhere as well: upscale kebab shops selling “elevated” versions of the German Turkish dish with truffles and asparagus; Berlin DJs enjoy North African tunes; Influencers wear hijab as a summer accessory. The aesthetics of immigrant life are endlessly imitated – while the people behind them remain suspect at best, a problem to be eliminated at worst.

Young Germans have recognized this fact: the student council in Anhan’s hometown of Offenbach has petitioned to include Haftbehl’s music in school curricula to reflect “post-immigrant” identities and popular cultural discussions. Unsurprisingly, the Hesse State Ministry of Culture and Education has so far rejected the proposal due to Haftepfel’s “penchant for crime”, as well as allegations of sexism or anti-Semitism, among other things. “Haftbefehl is the answer to com.stadtbild “I don’t relate to Goethe or Kafka,” one student told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Including Haftpiefel’s lyric poems in the school curriculum would attract more students, and ultimately help their “integration” into German society.

The pressure to conform to the idea of ​​assimilation is deeply ingrained even within post-immigration youth themselves. But as the Chancellor contemplates the German cityscape, the question remains: What should integration look like? Will it ever include the views of those pushed to conform or will the concept remain a dead end? Can those who do not fit Merz’s picture of Germany truly feel at home, no matter how much they internalize the often vague idea of ​​Germanness?

One of the most poignant scenes in Papo shows Aanhahn sitting on the floor, singing along to a song by traditional German singer-songwriter Reinhard May. In Minim Garten. It is a moment of quiet revelation: a man who will forever be seen as not belonging to the Chancellor’s ideals com.stadtbildHowever, it is deeply shaped and shaped by German culture, and it is very German in its tastes and sensibilities.