In the artist's words:

Ass huh, Zäng ussenander!
Yesterday, today and tomorrow - in Cologne and everywhere

Germany's longest-running musicians' and artists' initiative has been successfully mobilizing against racism and strengthening cohesion in an entire region for 30 years.

(Cologne) On November 9, 2022, it will be exactly 30 years ago. 100,000 people from all over the region gathered around Cologne's Chlodwigplatz for one of the biggest rallies the city had ever seen. The motto: "Arsch huh, Zäng ussenander!" - in German: "Stand up and open your mouth!" The demonstrators had responded to a call from Cologne's music scene to protest together against racism and neo-Nazis. In the early 1990s, arson attacks on refugee shelters and attacks on people of foreign origin had become part of everyday life in Germany to such an extent that many people were left speechless.

It was the Cologne-Turkish musician and journalist Nedim Hazar, father of Eko Fresh, who sent out the first wake-up call among his musician friends. Within a few days, on the initiative of Wolfgang Niedecken and the music manager Karl Heinz Pütz, the almost complete squad of Cologne's most popular music groups came together, including BAP, Bläck Föös, Höhner, LSE, Piano has been drinking, Zeltinger, Brings and Nick Nikitakis. New songs were composed, recorded and released at lightning speed so that the first CDs could be sold on the streets on the day of the rally.

For the first time, a solidarity was formed that reached beyond the bands' own horizons and became groundbreaking for other initiatives: An overarching alliance of all democratic forces, from the political left to far into the bourgeois camp. Applied to the music scene: rockers and carnivalists stood together here. What's more, from the very beginning, the musicians were keen to expand their network to include the city's international music scene and to attract a wide-ranging environment of cultural workers, academics and social and political forces. On this evening, they stood on one stage: artists and groups from punk, rock, blues, pop, soul, hip-hop, world music, cabaret, a gay men's choir and, representing the older generation, the actor Willy Millowitsch. His recitation from Zuckmayer's "The Devil's General" about the diverse roots of the Rhinelanders was a highlight among the numerous speeches of the evening, including Klaus Bednarz (Monitor), the authors Elke Heidenreich and Günter Wallraff and the Edelweiss Pirate Jean Jülich.

The rally had a tremendous signal effect. The protest song "Arsch huh" became an anthem and the CD of the same name quickly raised DM 1 million, which the musicians used to support civil society projects throughout the region. The core of the musicians decided to use their own fame permanently for political goals. To this end, they founded an association called Arsch Huh e.V..

Today, Arsch Huh is the longest-lived and most influential musicians' and artists' initiative against the right in the Federal Republic of Germany. More than almost any other initiative, it has repeatedly succeeded in mobilizing significant sections of the local and regional population to protest against right-wing groups. The list of actions in which more than 1000 artists have participated on podiums and stages over the past 30 years, reaching more than 1 million people, impressively demonstrates the potential impact of an artists' initiative in the field of tension between music and politics. The term "Arsch huh" has become part of the local patriotic self-image of the entire region. And this applies to all generations, especially as younger artists and bands such as Fatih Cevikkollu and Carolin Kebekus, Kasalla, Cat Ballou, Eko Fresh, Mikrophone Mafia, Stunker and Björn Heuser have also become involved with Arsch huh over time. Unsurprisingly, there have been attempts by right-wing extremists to misuse the "Arsch huh" exclamation or many Cologne evergreens for their own purposes. But the Arsch huhs have also known how to fend this off, whether musically with the song "Su läuf dat he" or with lawyers and courts.

Arsch Huh is now part of Cologne tradition as a synonym for the commitment with which the entire region was mobilized against the right, for the improvement of coexistence and also for an urban society based on solidarity.
This 30-year commitment has left its mark. Cologne is committed to tolerance and diversity. Right-wing extremist groups and parties hardly play a role in Cologne. But vigilance remains
remains necessary: Hanau and Halle, racist and anti-Semitic attacks show that the fight for a democratic society based on solidarity must continue. Arsch huh, Zäng ussenander remains an ongoing task - in Cologne and everywhere!