Roger Waters wears SS uniform and projects ‘Anne Frank’ on screen at concert in Germany

Music

By Nicki Gostin

May 25, 2023 | 10:24 a.m.

Roger Waters has come under fire for donning an outfit resembling that of a Nazi SS officer at a concert in Berlin, Germany.

On May 17, the Pink Floyd co-founder – who has been a vocal critic of the Israeli government – wore the uniform as he performed at the Mercedes-Benz Arena.

The ensemble featured a black jacket accented with a red armband and a mock rifle. Behind Waters, 79, floated an inflatable pig adorned with Third Reich-style banners with crossed hammers instead of swastikas.

But that wasn’t the only dodgy imagery the “Wish You Were Here” singer employed that night.

According to local reporters, a screen projected the words: “The show will start in 10 minutes and a court in Frankfurt has ruled that I am not an anti-Semite,” reports The Times of Israel. “To be clear, I condemn anti-Semitism without reservation.”

The screens also displayed the names of victims Waters believes were killed by governments, including Iranian Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly beaten to death by the country’s ‘morality police’, George Floyd and activist Anti-Nazi Sophie Scholl.

However, it was the name of Holocaust victim Anne Frank that was displayed immediately after Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh that caused the ire.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized the concert and called on German authorities to prosecute Waters for invoking and distorting Holocaust imagery.

“Shame on the authorities in Frankfurt and the Mercedes Benz Arena in Berlin – a place from which Jews were deported by the Nazis – for providing the anti-Semite #RogerWaters with this venue for his concert without caring about the community Jewish,” the center tweeted.

The British-born rocker is a long-time supporter of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to boycott and withdraw funds from Israel in a bid to pressure the Israeli government to change its policies towards the Palestinian people.

In 2014 he criticized the Rolling Stones for playing in Israel.

Waters has also been criticized for his views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview with Germany’s Berliner Zeitung, Waters defended Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. He also compared the treatment of Palestinians by the State of Israel to the Holocaust.

Novelist Polly Samson, who is married to Pink Floyd member David Gilmour, criticized the interview at the time.

“Unfortunately @rogerwaters you are antisemitic to the core,” she tweeted, and called him a “Putin apologist and liar, thief, hypocrite, tax avoider, lip synch, misogynist, envy patient, megalomaniac”.

In another interview, Waters claimed to be on a Ukrainian casualty list due to his criticism of the war-torn country. Page Six reached out to Waters’ rep for comment.