Ayhan Simsek
05 October 2026•Update: 05 October 2026
German Jewish singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Israel had committed war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.
Biermann, who turns 90 next month and whose family members were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, spoke to German news agency DPA ahead of his appearance at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
“Ah, Netanyahu and his lemures!” he said, using the term for the devil’s helpers in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Faust.”
“What is happening now in the Gaza Strip is, of course, not genocide, but it is a war crime. No ifs, ands or buts,” he said. “It hurts many people around the world. But for me it is doubly and triply painful.”
Asked about the rise of antisemitism in Germany, Biermann said Netanyahu and his right-wing government bore much of the responsibility.
“Unfortunately, this dynamic takes hold so effectively because the worst and most dangerous antisemites currently live in Israel and are in the process of transforming the country into a reactionary, brutal and oppressive state,” he said.
He said his hope for a democratic, humane Israel had vanished.
Biermann is scheduled to present excerpts from his diaries at the fair Wednesday under the title “You extinguish the fire with gasoline.” The reading will open a series of events marking his 90th birthday.