The Chimneys of the Arms Forges

Evil makes us shudder precisely when it does not show itself with a roguish grin, but appears with an innocuous face behind which it hides at first. In the first verse of his song „Schornstein“, Prinz Pi paints the picture of a man who at first glance is a blameless, well-earning family father, the friendly, respectable neighbour next door.

Until just before the end of the verse, the lyrical I speaks from the father’s point of view, formulating his own contradictions, which remain hidden from the father himself but not from the listener:

This is exactly how one commonly pictures the exemplary, tax-paying citizen: the loving father of a family, a German automobile parked out front, and evidently someone who does „something sensible“ for a living. The employer itself likewise appears to be a thoroughly exemplary operation:

We train apprentices here! The books were always in the black
Solar cells on the roof cover all that we consume
We sort the waste, filter the air and the wastewater clean
A biotope in the little brook beside the factory

What could there be to fault in such a company? Productive, environmentally friendly and job-creating. What more could be expected of a sensible operation? Yet in the final lines the veil falls:

We produce the best weapons in the world right here
From this country come the best weapons in the world
From this very man come the best weapons in the world
Onto the roofs of everyone here the money rains down

This verse is truly no fable. There may well be quite a few men – especially in Baden-Württemberg – who live the inconspicuous life of a friendly homeowner and family father and on workdays, in the weapons forges, build and sell the killing machinery that bombs „little houses“ to rubble and massacres families in every part of the world. Yet this is consistently blocked out, for the weapons producers are wholly estranged and split off from their field of application and their destructive force. And so Prinz Pi raps in the hook, or refrain:

We sleep well, because we do an important job
Where it all ends up, I don’t keep in my head
I don’t decide who should die, don’t compare myself to God
In the factory I just always press the right button

In the end it comes down to the fact that – as Pi repeats several times in the refrain – the chimney of every factory is smoking.

Were one to take the waste sorting seriously, however, every product manufactured there would have to end up as hazardous waste. Yet if it did, the company’s very purpose would be gone, and with it the prestigious employment of its staff along with all the comforts that come with it.

This estrangement from killing is not, however, confined to the employee of the arms factory. In the second verse Pi raps from the perspective of a fighter-jet pilot of the Captain Maverick variety, the kind familiar from the Top Gun films with Tom Cruise. Here he strikingly describes the fusion of man and killing machine and the loss of empathy that goes with it:

Physically in peak shape, I am one with the cockpit
Know in my sleep where every switch and button is
Know my jet like a part of my own body
React by reflex without the detour through words
Every system works, double-checked
And I too function perfectly, like clockwork
Give me coordinates, and I press the button
And I press it as often as I’m told to press
As often as I’m told to press
Mission a success, a spotless kill rate
As the jet is rolled back into the hangar
I feel, afterwards, a little proud

Prinz Pi – who today, sadly, is no longer as critical as in earlier days – showed with this work how the mechanical – whether in the arms factories or in the fighting machines themselves – pushes back the human and lets the extinguishing of life become abstract. The almost cheerful beat contrasts with the seriousness of the subject, while the exotic drums and vocals hint, beneath the surface, at the regions of the world in which the weapons do their deadly work.