Theater director Alvis Hermanis and freedom of speech in Germany

The material published in Der Spiegel is not an interview at all, but a critical article by Wolfgang Höbel about Alvis Hermanis titled “Ein Volksfeind” (“An Enemy of the People”), which appeared on 11 December 2015.

This article and the scandal that followed in the German press and cultural sphere arose for the following reasons:

Context: in 2015 Alvis Hermanis refused to work at Hamburg’s Thalia Theater. The reason was his firm objections to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policy and the German theatre community’s active support for receiving refugees.
Essence of the content: the article sharply criticised and analysed the email letter Hermanis sent to the theatre, in which he expressed outrage at Germany’s “refugee enthusiasm” and pointed to the risks that humanitarian aid creates for Europe’s security. The title “Ein Volksfeind” is a direct reference to Henrik Ibsen’s play “An Enemy of the People.”
Hermanis had allowed himself to express a civic position, daring to criticise the Western political elite and its “pocket” media.
Consequences: after this power-pleasing article and the similar pieces that followed in the German media, Hermanis was in effect subjected to a kind of “cancel culture” and for many years was excluded and disappeared from Germany’s major theatre stages.
The case of Alvis Hermanis as litmus paper exposed the hypocrisy of the Western political system regarding the proclaimed democracy, freedom of speech and political views.
Alvis Hermanis and the West’s suicidal illusion: how “An Enemy of the People” foresaw Europe’s present deadlock
In 2015 the German left-liberal magazine Der Spiegel called Latvian director Alvis Hermanis an “Enemy of the People” (Ein Volksfeind). His crime? Refusal to remain silent and submit to the dictatorship of political correctness at a time when Germany and all of Western Europe, in the blindness of self-destruction, opened the gates to uncontrolled mass immigration.

Today, that is in the second half of 2026, more than 15 years later, Hermanis’s warnings of that time have become a harsh everyday reality on Europe’s streets — uncontrolled Muslim masses dominate many European cities.
The case still serves as an outstanding and frightening example of how the Western political elite and the media machinery that serves it work. It is a serious warning bell for society as a whole.

In German cultural criticism Höbel and those like him are characterised as “neo-Marxists” or left-liberals (so-called Woke intellectuals). Höbel has not acted as a lone fighter — his articles have always perfectly reflected the common course set by Der Spiegel and Germany’s cultural elite with a well-honed methodology. There is a series of articles in his career in which these techniques are practised. There is no basis for calling him a classical communist when the talk was of the power of the proletariat. Western neo-Marxism and left-liberalism focus on cultural hegemony. That is, control mechanisms (cancel culture, public shame) are directed against those individuals who do not agree with such “correct” topics as mass immigration, globalism and gender politics. They themselves regard themselves as “progressive humanists,” yet the methods they use (marginalisation of dissenters, persecution, labelling) recall the techniques of totalitarian regimes.

The “pocket” media that serve power and the dictatorship of the “correct opinion”
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed her famous slogan “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”) in 2015, the major Western media immediately ceased to function as independent sources of information. They turned into instruments of pure propaganda that maintained an artificial psychosis of “refugee enthusiasm” (Willkommenskultur).

Any rational criticism, concerns about security or economic justification were brutally silenced. Journalists whose direct task would be to explain, analyse and put inconvenient questions to power instead assumed the role of ideological guards. Anyone who dared to point to reality was instantly marginalised, declared a “fascist,” “xenophobe,” Kremlin agent, someone who does not think in a state-minded way, mentally unhealthy, or — in Hermanis’s case — an “enemy of the people.” The methodology and arsenal of labelling among the left are perfectly developed.

The reference to Henrik Ibsen’s play in the Der Spiegel article was a cynical attempt to exert public pressure and exclude the unsubmissive Latvian director from European cultural circulation. It was a classic lesson in “cancel culture” even before the term became popular.

Fake refugees and exploitation of the benefit system
The main object of criticism by Hermanis and others who had not lost their common sense was the West’s naïve and irresponsible attitude toward those who crossed Europe’s borders. Under the cover of humanitarian aid, millions not of real war refugees but of illegal economic migrants were drawn into Europe. The ruling elite, promising that these people would “save Europe’s economy” and “fill the labour shortage,” gently fitted itself also into the international human-smuggling business.
Reality proved diametrically opposite:

Benefit tourism: the huge mass of migrants deliberately headed for countries with the most generous social systems (Germany, Sweden). Instead of integrating and working, a large part comfortably settled at the expense of local taxpayers.
System overload: Europe’s social budgets, medical and education systems were and still are overloaded by funding people who have no desire whatsoever to contribute to the prosperity of these countries.
Parallel societies: instead of work and integration, ghetto districts and parallel societies have formed in Western metropolises, in which their own laws prevail. There the local police and state power can no longer control the situation.
Self-destruction of Western civilisation
Alvis Hermanis’s conflict with Hamburg’s Thalia Theater and the German intelligentsia was not merely a dispute about theatre art or politics. It was and still is a question of civilisational self-respect. The Western world, having betrayed its Christian, ethical and rational roots, has replaced them with a suicidal pseudo-humanism, attacking anyone who objects to this collective suicide.

The cultural elite, which historically has been society’s voice of vigilance, has in the West become a cheap fellow-traveller of the destructive system. Theatres, universities and art spaces have been turned into camps of left-wing ideological indoctrination where critical thinking is forbidden.

The test of time: who turned out to be right?
Looking from today’s perspective it is completely clear — Alvis Hermanis has won this intellectual and moral struggle. Everything he warned about in 2015 — from the dramatic deterioration of the security situation in European cities to the inevitable collapse of social systems and the splitting of society — has, unfortunately, come to pass.

Alvis Hermanis’s warnings expressed in 2015 must in the contemporary context be evaluated as prophetic. Today even part of those same politicians and media that attacked Hermanis at the time are forced quietly to admit that migration policy has suffered a complete crash. Many of them simply pretend that nothing of the kind was said or happened.
Yet the story of the “Enemy of the People” will remain in history as a reminder of collective memory of how costly it is to tell the truth at a time when lies have become state policy.

While the media rhapsodise about inclusive diversity, telling of the so eagerly awaited doctors, engineers, pianists and other intellectuals, social networks show an entirely opposite picture of violence, complete decadence, chaos, anarchy. It is no accident that EU commissioners of various levels (what a devilish coincidence of the title of persons of power with the 1930s USSR (!)), emissaries and other representatives of power speak ever more of stricter control or restriction or banning of social-media platforms, hypocritically and falsely hiding behind principles of humanism, children’s rights and other well-worked techniques.

Capitulation of the benefit system: figures the elite tried to hide
When Alvis Hermanis spoke of immigration into social systems, left-wing media called it a “myth.” Today Germany’s official statistics show an entirely different reality. Germany’s generous unemployment and social-benefit system, now known as Bürgergeld, has undergone a massive structural shift.

Millions of benefit recipients: official data show that more than 2.5 million foreigners receive social benefits in Germany. Of them approximately 1.83 million are of working age, yet for various reasons do not work and live off taxpayers’ money.
Migration background dominates: overall more than 55% of all long-term benefit recipients in Germany have a migration background. In a country where the native population still forms a convincing majority, such a disproportion is clear proof that humanitarian aid has turned into mass economic benefit tourism.
System collapse: the benefit burden has become so unbearable that even the German government was forced to reach an agreement on a radical tightening of the rules, in effect planning a reform and renaming of the benefit system (Grundsicherungsgeld), because the previous liberal model has exhausted the state treasury.
These figures destroy the myth maintained by politicians about “saviours of the economy” from African tribes and jihadist combat camps. Europe did not gain highly qualified specialists but an enormous social burden that local taxpayers now carry on their shoulders.

Security crisis and “No-Go” zones: reality on Europe’s streets
The second great taboo against which Hermanis once turned was security risks and cultural incompatibility. Public order in Western European metropolises has changed irreversibly, and even the authorities can no longer hush it up.

Parallel laws and ghettos: in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and other metropolises massive parallel societies have formed. These territories, called “No-Go” zones, are controlled not by state laws but by clan structures and religious radicalism. The local police in these districts often cannot or even fear to go and maintain order.
Non-occurring deportation: despite politicians’ loud promises to intensify expulsions, the real number of deportations remains tiny compared with the influx of illegal migrants. Legal loopholes, loud and scandal-loving but generously funded so-called non-governmental organisations that serve power, and pressure from media captured by left-wing ideology allow hundreds of thousands of people whose asylum applications have been rejected to remain illegally on European territory for years and receive benefits.
Payment cards as a step of despair: the situation became so uncontrollable that Germany’s federal states were forced to introduce special refugee payment cards (Bezahlkarte), limiting cash withdrawals (in many places to only 50 euros a month). This was done with one aim — to stop the outflow of state-budget money to migrants’ countries of origin and reduce Germany’s attractiveness as a “benefit paradise.” Yet the situation is gradually slipping out of control.
What does the creative intelligentsia do, which is usually the mind and conscience of any nation? Under conditions of totalitarianism, in the best case these circles, preserving themselves, remain silent, hoping it will not touch them; in the worse case one can observe conformism in its most repulsive form.

Hysteria of the cultural elite: betrayal by theatre managements and colleagues
Alvis Hermanis’s announcement of ending cooperation with Hamburg’s Thalia Theater caused genuine hysteria in Germany’s cultural elite and started a public lynch court. The theatre milieu, which in the West positions itself as “the last bastion of free thought,” instantly turned into an ideological comrades’ court that does not forgive deviation from the official political line.

Hypocrisy of the theatre management: the intendant of Hamburg’s Thalia Theater, Joachim Lux, declared in an open letter that he was “deeply shaken” and hurried publicly to distance himself from Hermanis’s views.
The theatre management publicly announced that their institution actively supports refugees and provides them with humanitarian aid, therefore Hermanis’s position is “incompatible” with the theatre’s values. Instead of defending the artist’s right to an opinion, the management chose to please the political elite in a repulsive, fawning and base way.
Collective condemnation: in German theatre circles a competition began over who would condemn the Latvian director more loudly. Colleagues, actors and directors who only recently had admired Hermanis’s talent and invited him to stage productions suddenly publicly called him a “reactionary” and a “right-wing radical.”
The art world demonstrated absolute treacherous conformism — fear of being associated with the “wrong opinion” was greater than any collegiality or artistic solidarity.
The path to complete “cancellation”: the reaction was not limited only to Hamburg. Germany’s leading theatre critics and cultural publications launched a targeted campaign to make Hermanis persona non grata throughout the German-speaking cultural space. This case became an unmistakable signal to all other Western artists: if you do not support mass immigration and the left-liberal agenda, your career in Western Europe will be destroyed.

The new totalitarianism: dismantling of fundamental freedoms under the cover of humanism
The “cancellation” campaign against Alvis Hermanis was not a random incident or an emotional misunderstanding — it was a harbinger of a new, far more dangerous tendency that today has completely taken over the Western cultural space. Western civilisation, which for centuries prided itself on freedom of speech, the right to a different opinion and pluralism, is now rapidly sliding toward a new kind of totalitarianism. The specificity of this new totalitarianism is that it is not introduced with tanks or military dictatorship. It is imposed through cultural, academic and media institutions, using supposedly noble slogans — “inclusion,” “diversity,” “tolerance” and “social justice.” Yet behind these beautiful words hides a brutal mechanism that systematically destroys the fundamental freedoms of democracy.

Monopolisation of opinions: any discussion of fundamental societal questions — whether migration, national identity or traditional values — has been replaced by one “correct” ideological line. Critical thinking is equated with “hate speech,” and any attempt to question the elite’s decisions is criminalised or administratively punished.
Fear and self-censorship: the greatest success of the new totalitarianism is the fear sown in society. Artists, scholars and journalists in the West today engage in mass self-censorship.
They remain silent not because they agree with the ruling policy, but because they fear losing their job, funding, social status and being publicly destroyed in the media, exactly as Hermanis once was.
The bureaucracy also finds itself under a similar moral burden.
Degradation of art and education: when ideology becomes more important than talent and truth, culture begins to rot. Western theatres and cinema no longer engage in deep analysis of the human soul or society’s problems — they have turned into megaphones of political agitation in which characters are selected according to ideological quotas, not artistic necessity.
It is no accident that, to please the dominant ideology, every film, production or work of art requires a demonstration of this new diversity — mixed marriages or same-sex relationships, denial of religion, etc., or some other examples of adapting historical events.
One should quote Latvian lawyer Andris Grūtups: if we want to prove the absurdity of some matter, it must be driven to farce.
Such examples of farce already exist.

There is a public incident that resounded widely on social networks.
At the Venice Film Festival at the press conference of the 18th-century historical drama “The Promised Land” (The Promised Land / in Danish: Bastarden):

Journalist’s question: a Danish journalist addressed the film’s director Nikolaj Arcel and famous Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, pointing out that this is a Danish production whose cast is “entirely Nordic,” therefore a “lack of diversity” is observable in it.
He anxiously asked whether the filmmakers were not worried that because of such “homogeneity” the film would not be able to qualify for an Oscar (because new diversity and inclusion rules have come into force in Hollywood).
Mads Mikkelsen’s reaction: Mikkelsen literally interrupted the journalist mid-sentence, opened his eyes wide in disbelief, began laughing loudly and asked sharply: “What? … Are you serious?” When the journalist tried to continue explaining Hollywood’s rules, Mikkelsen sat him down, saying: “You are putting us in an awkward position right now, so answer yourself — are you worried about that?”
On social networks this episode has transformed into a question about “Vikings.” The story on the internet (X, TikTok and Facebook) quickly acquired legendary status and is linked with another current topic — the real scandal around the Netflix series “Vikings: Valhalla.” In it the series makers really, adapting to modern requirements, chose a black actress for the ruler of the Viking city of Kattegat (who in history was the white man Hakon Sigurdsson), which caused huge public incomprehension and discussions about rewriting history. The cocktail of these two events on social networks creates in fact a unique narrative — about the “dumb reporter who has the chance to pass himself off as a journalist demanding modern political-correctness quotas in a historical European context.”
Mads Mikkelsen’s reaction in Venice became a symbol of common-sense resistance to this ideological pressure. One can predict that the film “has nothing shining” across the ocean, because 18th-century Denmark without Negroes and Arab youths has been weeded out of perception in left-wing societies.
Western Europe is now paying a terrible price for its arrogance and unwillingness to listen to the warnings timely expressed to it by people from Eastern Europe — those who have real historical experience with totalitarian regimes and propaganda machines. Eastern Europe has lived through the communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union and its campaigns of persecution and repression of “enemies of the people,” therefore we recognise all too well the same symptoms in today’s rhetoric of Brussels or Berlin. The case of Alvis Hermanis is a thorough warning that one must not blindly and uncritically adopt the West’s suicidal models.
A nation-state, strict border control, freedom of speech and the right to defend one’s cultural identity are not “outdated nationalism” — they are the only preconditions for the survival of any people and state in this Europe of turmoil.
History has already proved who was right in 2015. Now the question is only whether European society will have enough courage and strength to stop this collective madness.

[1] https://www.spiegel.de [2] https://www.faz.net