Hakan Rotmwrt

I don’t believe for a moment that Rammstein used a black model to defuse allegations of nationalism. For one thing, as long as I had followed them (fairly recently) there was no trace of actual German nationalism, only cheeky ironic ambiguity.

That aside, the Rammstein videos I saw always were ironic, ambiguous, clever but never decidedly on any political side. Deutschland continues this path. They are great aesthetes, not stubborn politicians.

There may have been an ironic element in making a pitch-black girl the cover of a Deutschland album but perhaps more than that, she makes a great contrast to the gold and white dresses in the video. I suspect there’s not much more to it than that.