The music producer Dieter Bohlen proposed a very simple solution to the conflict with Russia at an event organized by the so-called "Entrepreneur University": "If they hadn't imposed these sanctions, for example, and you had sat down at the table sensibly, then people wouldn't have to now do all this frills, ”said Bohlen.
"Now we have to freeze," added the multi-millionaire and received plenty of applause for his statement.
Reinhard Bingener
Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.
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The SPD federal chairwoman Saskia Esken called Bohlen's admission "morally degenerate" and criticized the music producer for ignoring the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine in his statements.
Former boxer Vitali Klitschko invited Bohlen to the city of Kyiv, ruled by his brother Wladimir, which has again been the target of Russian missile attacks in recent days.
"Do you, Dieter Bohlen, not care if people die here?
Don't you care that Putin wants to destroy our country with rockets?" Klitschko asked in a statement.
Dieter Bohlen once had great commercial success in Russia with his pop band Modern Talking.
"I've already played in the Kremlin eight times," reported Bohlen in a book that was published in 2002 to support the election campaign of the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Sigmar Gabriel.
Gabriel lost the election, but shortly afterwards Gerhard Schröder entrusted him with the newly created office of "SPD Pop Commissioner".
When "Modern Talking" broke up a little later, the "pop officer" Gabriel made headlines with the following assessment of the band's split: "It was long overdue."