Overview
- Heino, who performed Saturday in Bad Belzig, drew about 800 people including many firefighters and closed by singing only the anthem’s third stanza.
- Referee Richard Münder lost his posts after the 2025 Torgau championship played the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied, which he says came from a Heino recording he downloaded and passed to the event DJ.
- Heino and his manager argued Münder deserves a second chance, while the German Firefighters’ Association has kept the disciplinary removal in place.
- Münder says he helped found a separate Deutsche Feuerwehrsport Gemeinschaft to stage annual contests, and Brandenburg’s state association barred use of its insignia at that group’s activities as president Rolf Fünning warned of a split.
- A counter‑event titled Knallbunt ist die Haselnuss took place in town, and local reports noted attendees from the right wing at the concert, including AfD lawmaker Lars Schieske, as debate over the anthem’s earlier verses—legal yet stigmatized since Nazi misuse—intensified.