Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Says Nazi-Reminiscent Costume at Berlin Show Was ‘Clearly’ Anti-Fascist Statement

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters said in a statement Saturday that he was "quite clearly" opposing fascism when he wore Nazi-reminiscent clothing at a Berlin concert that triggered an investigation by German police.

The famous musician appeared on stage earlier this month carrying a fake rifle and wearing a black leather coat with a red armband reminiscent of the garb of an SS officer in Nazi Germany.

The "uniform" included a swastika-like emblem of crossed hammers, a design that appeared on costumes in a film based on the rock band's fascist-attacking 1979 album The Wall.

Behind Waters, 79, floated an inflatable pig with the same emblem.

The depiction of “an unhinged fascist demagogue” had been a feature of his shows since that album, Waters emphasized in his statement Saturday.

Now police are investigating him for suspicion of "incitement to hatred" under laws passed after World War II prohibiting actions supporting Nazis.

“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it," Waters noted in his statement posted to Twitter, adding that he was the victim of a "politically motivated" smear campaign.

The Berlin performance has "attracted bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles," Waters noted.

He stressed that his parents "fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price.”

His father, Eric Fletcher Waters, was killed in the Battle of Anzio in 1944 when his son was a baby.

Waters said his dress was “quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms."

But the police said that provocative clothing can be deemed "capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace."

One of Waters' concerts planned in May in Frankfurt was canceled in February after local officials condemned what they characterized as a "persistent anti-Israel behavior of the former Pink Floyd frontman, who is considered one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world." 

Waters has spoken out against Israel's control of Palestine, describing Israel as an “apartheid state” guilty of “ethnic cleansing."

The musician has often emphasized that he's opposed to Israel's actions and policies, not Judaism, and accuses the nation of “abusing the term antisemitism to intimidate people, like me, into silence."

The Frankfurt cancellation was overturned in April, but protests have continued at Waters' German performances.

Before the Berlin concert, a message was projected on a stage screen reading in part: "A court in Frankfurt has ruled that I am not an antisemite. Just to be clear, I condemn antisemitism unreservedly."