Personal Statement: CSD Berlin / Pride Berlin - Terrorist attack - Niels Brabandt | Interview DER SPIEGEL / SPIEGEL MAGAZIN
CSD Berlin: Terrorist Attack Reveals - Personal Statement Niels Brabandt
Niels Brabandt was at Pride Berlin, the city's Christopher Street Day celebration, this weekend when a terrorist attack struck the event. At least 29 people were injured and one person lost their life. Niels Brabandt had already left the celebration for his hotel shortly before the attack and was in a safe place when it happened. In an unscheduled special episode of his podcast and videocast, recorded the same night, he addresses what happened, and DER SPIEGEL subsequently interviewed him, alongside several other attendees, at the memorial vigil that followed at the Brandenburg Gate.
A Weekend That Became a Turning Point
The attack involved a vehicle driven into the crowd. In its aftermath, hundreds gathered for a vigil at the Brandenburg Gate, and a memorial service followed at St Marien Church, at which Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Berlin's mayor Kai Wegner both spoke. Niels Brabandt attended both, having gone almost without sleep overnight while helping people affected by the attack. DER SPIEGEL and Spiegel Magazin covered the vigil, capturing a crowd that was visibly shaken, comforting one another, and using the moment to make a political statement against hatred directed at their community. Niels Brabandt himself appears, visibly emotional, among those interviewed in the Spiegel Magazin coverage.
Check Your Own Privilege Before You Speak
Niels Brabandt is explicit that, as a white, cisgender, financially secure, self-employed man, he is among the least affected by what happened, and that this is precisely why his first instinct is to direct help towards those who need it most: young people, marginalised communities, women and minorities in particular. He is equally direct about a different kind of statement, the suggestion that Pride events are no longer necessary. In his view, this weekend answered that question conclusively, and anyone who has made that argument, or dismissed Pride as merely a party, owes an apology. He points to the Stonewall riots as a reminder of what Pride actually replaced, and argues that repeating such comments today disqualifies a person from leadership, and from working with others, in any organisational context.
Extremism, Not Immigration, Is the Problem
Niels Brabandt is unambiguous that responsibility for the attack lies with extremism, not with immigrants or with Islam. He is sharply critical of the speed with which the AfD, a party German courts have confirmed as a far-right extremist movement, issued a press statement blaming foreigners without a single word of sympathy for the victims. He extends the same criticism beyond Germany, naming the Rassemblement National in France and Reform UK as comparable populist movements offering simple answers to complex problems. In his assessment, anyone affiliating with such movements is unfit for leadership or collaborative roles of any kind, because doing so signals an inability to engage with complexity rather than retreat into easy blame.
Words Are Not Enough: Accountability for Leaders
Niels Brabandt reserves some of his sharpest words for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who told the crowd at St Marien Church that he stands with the queer community. Niels Brabandt notes that Merz's government shut down Germany's Aktionsplan Queeres Leben, the national action plan for queer life, and recently withdrew funding from Lambda, a queer youth network supporting young people in marginalised situations. He states clearly that this is not merely his personal opinion but a conclusion he attributes to legal experts and other professionals: that the Chancellor has previously misled the public on budget matters, and that solidarity expressed without funding or action behind it is not solidarity at all. He extends this challenge to any leader who claims to support diversity, equity and inclusion without backing that claim with resources or decisions, and notes pointedly which corporate brands were visibly present at this year's Pride and which were not, adding that this absence will have consequences.
What This Means for Businesses and Leaders
Niels Brabandt frames the wider lesson for organisations directly. Diversity, equity and inclusion are under more sustained political pressure than in decades, despite scientific evidence in their favour being, in his words, as unambiguous as evidence gets. His practical recommendation for any leader unsure how to respond is the Psychological First Aid method, in which he holds a professional qualification from Johns Hopkins University, built around three steps: Look, noticing colleagues or contacts whose behaviour has changed. Listen, since listening alone reassures someone that they are not alone. And Link, connecting people with professional support once a conversation reaches the limit of what a colleague or manager can offer. His closing message to leaders and organisations is unambiguous: statements of solidarity that are not matched by funding, policy or action are simply marketing, and the moment to demonstrate the difference is now.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast's and podcast's transcript, read below this article.
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
Terrorist attack at Pride Berlin. I am in Berlin still, right now, as you can see in the background. You see the TV tower, you see the parking slightly behind my hotel. I was there at the Pride in Berlin; however, fortunately—well, looking back at it, fortunately—I left the Pride celebration slightly early to go back to my hotel. I was already in a safe space, in a safe place, when the terrorist attack happened, so I was not affected in a way that the car that actually ran to the people could affect me. However, we have more than 29 people—we have 29 people injured as far as I know right now. I'm recording this on Sunday night, so anything from here I can't know when you watch or hear this. And one person lost their life.
Niels Brabandt
The question is what to do. The question is what to do. And I also received—so first, of course, thank you very much for the countless messages which I received from friends, relatives, acquaintances, and also from lots of clients. Thank you very much for your support here. And some of you already saw that Der Spiegel, the German magazine, Spiegel Magazin, did an interview with me—not only with me, with many other great people. Many great people, and me, as I tend to say. And we're going to talk about that in a minute.
Niels Brabandt
Many people also wondered, "What should I do now?" Because it is perfectly normal that after a terrorist attack people say, "I'm helpless, I don't know what to do." I know that on Monday morning I will meet my queer people, my queer friends, my queer colleagues. What should I say? What should I do? Just a couple of words about this.
Niels Brabandt
So first, of course, take care of the people who need it most. I'll give you a very simple example. I am a white man, cisgender, and as a self-employed person who fortunately is reasonably successful with what I'm doing, I am in a financially safe situation. And due to that, I can help myself. Due to that, I am in the situation to be able to serve certain situations which other people clearly can't. Young people often are not in that situation. Marginalized communities are not in that situation. Especially women and minorities are marginalized, so help them first. You often will feel that you can't help everyone, and that's true. So help people first who need it most.
Niels Brabandt
However, you also need to be clear on your stand. When I hear that some people still say, "Why do we still need Pride?"—well, here we are. That's probably the point where we need Pride. And when you say, "Why do we actually need Pride?" you're not only politically ignorant—you have no point of view, obviously, on what's going on in the world at the moment—you see that this is actively harmful. And when anyone says, "Oh, all of these Pride-assist parties, right?" I mean, if you want, we can do Pride again, as we did them back in the days with Stonewall. Remember when riots happened in the street? Policemen got beaten up, windows smashed. You want that back? We don't. Probably you want. No one wants that. So why do we need Pride? That's why.
Niels Brabandt
And by the way, if you ever said—if you ever said something like, "We need Pride," or, "Pride is just a party," it is now a time to apologize. If not, you disqualify yourself not only from leadership, you disqualify yourself from being worked with together in any position, in any context, for the foreseeable future.
Niels Brabandt
And of course—and I'm addressing that in the interview that I did with May, I'm going to show you that in a minute—immediately, far right-winged organizations and political movements jumped on that. Immediately they said, "Oh, it's the immigrants," "Oh, it's all of the Islam," "Oh, it's all of these foreign non-white people." And no, that is not the case. It is absolutely—it is absolutely telling that the AfD, a far right-wing secured extremist movement in Germany, confirmed by court that they are far right-winged extremists, they made a press release. And in the press release, of course, they immediately blamed only foreigners for it, and not a single word regarding the victims. Not a single word. Which very clearly tells you where they stand on this. They don't care that queer people got killed. They don't care that queer people got injured. They only want to put their xenophobia out there.
Niels Brabandt
Which also very clearly—and I want to be unambiguously clear here—very clearly says that when people in your organization, your circle of friends, or anywhere else, affiliate themselves with extremist movements, may it be the AfD in Germany, may it be the Rassemblement National in France, may it be the Reform Party in the UK, these people, with their extremist views deeply based in populist movements, are unable to lead or to work with anyone because they're obviously unable to understand complex situations with complex solutions. You want an easy solution in a complex world, and that doesn't exist. And if you think you should go down that route, you're unsuitable for any kind of leadership or organizational role, and you have to face these consequences.
Niels Brabandt
On top of that, we today had a mourning, a memorial, at the Brandenburg Gate, and I was there very early. I mean, from last—from yesterday to today, almost no sleep happened anywhere from helping people through this night. And Friedrich Merz, our chancellor, besides Mr. Wegner, who is the Berlin mayor, they spoke in the St. Marien Church, which is the church about a mile away from the Brandenburg Gate. Whatever Mr. Wegner said, he's the mayor that's not going to be reelected anyway because he's not running again.
Niels Brabandt
However, when Mr. Merz, our chancellor, stands there again, and first he says, "I have a couple of greetings, personal words," he said, "for the queer community." First, when you then go on with, "Dear ladies and gentlemen," you really didn't do your homework, but that's a side remark in these times now. When you say—and you said that word by word because I was there—you said, word by word, that you fight with us. Mr. Merz, not only did you lie to us about the household and the money in there, we all know that. And I am referring to legal prophesies and professionals who say that he lied on that matter. That's not my personal opinion. That's just facts.
Niels Brabandt
However, you were the one that put the action plan for Queer Life to death. You just closed it down. And just recently you defunded Lumda, which is a queer youth network for people in marginalized situations who are in dire need of help, and you just defunded that one. You're fighting with us? You're hiding that pretty well.
Niels Brabandt
So, Mr. Merz, as a chancellor, please stop lying. And any leader, by the way, in any organization listening to this, when you do not support diversity, then simply say that, besides the fact that the scientific evidence in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion is unambiguously clear—as unambiguous as it can ever be—when you still say you support everything but not with money or actions, you're not supporting anything. You just want to use this for advertising.
Niels Brabandt
And by the way, as we had our Pride on Saturday, we very much realized which brands were there again and which brands suddenly weren't. And no worries, that's going to have consequences. It obviously will have.
Niels Brabandt
The problem here is not Islam. The problem here is not the foreigners. The problem is extremism, and we have to deal with that. Take care of your communities. Help people. Offer help.
Niels Brabandt
And when you say, "I don't know how to do that," there is one method which, fortunately, due to the means I have—I'm professionally qualified by Johns Hopkins University, it's called PFA, psychological first aid—follow three steps. And these are three steps anyone can take right now. It's called Look, Listen, Link.
Niels Brabandt
So first, you look: who are the people who suddenly change behavior? Who are the people who suddenly change behavior in a weird way? Calm people who play overly cheering, people who are usually quite cheering, being very calm. Who really changed behavior? Because that's a warning sign. Listen to them. Listening alone helps a lot because people see, "I am not alone here." Someone is there to listen and probably help.
Niels Brabandt
And when you say, "I don't know how to do it from here," then link. Link them up with professionals. And when you want to send them my way, send them my way. You can find all of my contact data on LinkedIn and on the internet anyway. Contact me in any kind of means.
Niels Brabandt
And now I will show you—and because the video is done in German, I will translate it step by step, one after another, how the mourning went, what happened there, and also what people said who were there. Because they interviewed many great people, as I tend to say, many great people and me. So let's take a look at what Der Spiegel and Der Spiegel Magazin did here.
Speaker 2
Gerade auf dem Pariser Platz, wo eine.
Niels Brabandt
So first, you see here that the journalist is on the Pariser Platz, which is close to Brandenburg Gate, and she says that what is taking place there is a memorial for the victims of the terrorist attacks.
Speaker 2
Wache stattfindet, nach dem Anschlag auf den CSD gestern, bei dem mehrere Menschen schwer verletzt wurden und sogar eine Person gestorben ist.
Niels Brabandt
She then mentions that there are people who were injured and one person even got killed.
Speaker 2
Ist. Man sieht hier Menschen, die weinen.
Niels Brabandt
We see people who cry. And yes, that is me actually. That is me with a friend of mine who is a great person from the trans community in Berlin. And after a long night with very little sleep, clearly emotions took control of us, and we both cry in that situation, and that was desperately needed. And the journalist mentions here that we see people crying, but also.
Speaker 2
Die extrem mitgenommen sind, aber man sieht auch, dass sie sich gegenseitig in die Arme fallen und.
Niels Brabandt
She says that people also hug each other and help each other.
Speaker 2
Versuchen, Halt zu geben. Und sie versuchen auch, diese Mahnwache nochmal zu nutzen, um ein politisches Statement zu setzen gegen den Hass gegen ihre Community.
Niels Brabandt
And here she says that we're going to use this memorial, this mourning, to raise awareness against the hate against our community.
Speaker 3
Ich bin heute hier, weil der Anschlag auf den CSD nicht nur ein Anschlag auf unsere Community ist.
Niels Brabandt
She says she's not only here because the attack was an attack against the community.
Speaker 3
Sondern ein Anschlag auf Menschenrechte.
Niels Brabandt
It was an attack against human rights.
Speaker 3
Auf die Würde der Menschen.
Niels Brabandt
It was an attack against the dignity of humankind itself.
Speaker 3
Auf uns alle.
Niels Brabandt
Against all of us.
Speaker 3
Auf uns als Zivilgesellschaft.
Niels Brabandt
Against us as a civilized society.
Speaker 3
Wo ist die Politik, wenn man sie braucht?
Niels Brabandt
Where's politics when we need it?
Speaker 3
Ja, wenn ich schon wieder höre, der angebliche Täter.
Niels Brabandt
Where's politics when we need them? And then she says, "When I hear again, 'Oh, the alleged offender,' well, no one knows," and then.
Speaker 3
Steht ja noch nicht fest, ist Polizei bekannt.
Niels Brabandt
And then, surprise, surprise, it's already known to the police, but obviously no one did anything.
Speaker 3
Man muss sich fragen, wer hat da versagt?
Niels Brabandt
We have to wonder who failed here.
Speaker 4
Ich war gestern noch auf dem CSD und fand es so beeindruckend.
Niels Brabandt
She was at Pride Berlin, and she was very impressed how many hundreds of thousands of people protested peacefully together.
Speaker 4
Wie viele Hunderttausende Menschen demonstriert haben, aber dabei friedlich und fröhlich waren, egal von welcher sexuellen Ausrichtung sie waren.
Niels Brabandt
And she was impressed that anyone could celebrate there, irrelevant of their sexual orientation.
Speaker 4
Umso mehr hat mich halt der Vorfall geschockt.
Niels Brabandt
And she was even more shocked by what happened then.
Speaker 3
Jetzt.
Niels Brabandt
And now you see, by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, you see me, and you will also hear me in a minute.
Speaker 3
Kann ich auch noch vom Glück reden.
Niels Brabandt
I said I'm in a, rather in high commas, lucky situation as.
Speaker 3
Meine Güte, ich bin weißer.
Niels Brabandt
Good grief, I'm a white man. That's what I say here.
Speaker 3
Mann, cisgender.
Niels Brabandt
I'm cisgender, and for lucky situation, I'm self-employed in an economically stable position.
Speaker 3
Zum Glück als Selbstständiger wirtschaftlich in einer stabilen Position. Mich trifft das ja als Letztes.
Niels Brabandt
All of that will affect me the least due to the situation in which I am.
Speaker 3
Ist. Wir haben hier Leute, die wollen einen verdammten Tag.
Niels Brabandt
We have people here who just one day per year, just one day per year.
Speaker 3
Im Jahr, einen verdammten Tag im Jahr, eine gute Zeit haben.
Niels Brabandt
They just want to have a good time for one day per year. We see I'm clearly emotionally affected here, by the way, after a long, long day and a short, short night.
Speaker 3
Die jetzt vielleicht zu Hause sitzen und sagen, warum mache ich das überhaupt noch.
Niels Brabandt
And we have people who now probably sit at home and wonder, why do I still keep going? Why do I still keep going? Where's the point in all of this?
Speaker 3
Und gleichzeitig haben wir politische Bewegungen.
Niels Brabandt
And at the same time, we have political movements.
Speaker 3
Die das sofort, sofort nutzen werden, um Hass zu säen, was überhaupt keine Lösung ist.
Niels Brabandt
They will misuse this, abuse this, to seed hate, which is no solution at all.
Speaker 3
Es ist nicht so, dass die Ausländer oder der Islam an sich das Problem ist.
Niels Brabandt
It is not the case that the foreigner or the Islam is the problem.
Speaker 3
Es gibt Radikalismus, da müssen wir gegen vorgehen.
Niels Brabandt
There is radicalism, and we need to have a go against that.
Speaker 3
Wir sind kein Lebensstil, das ist kein Lifestyle.
Niels Brabandt
The next person says, "We are not some sort of lifestyle, some lifestyle choice."
Speaker 3
Es ist unser Leben, und das müssen wir mit aller mit allem verteidigen und dafür einstehen, weil wir sind so, wie wir sind.
Niels Brabandt
She says that this is not a lifestyle choice, and we have to defend everything we have. We are as we are, and we will not leave.
Speaker 3
Und wir gehen nicht weg.
Speaker 4
Ich stehe hier.
Niels Brabandt
That was the interview. I really hope that I would never have to do any kind of episode like this. As you can see, this is not the usual setting. This is not the usual way of how I do podcasts or videocasts.
Niels Brabandt
This is a personal message, and it's a personal message which is hopefully resounding with you, which is hopefully and may be helpful for you. And I hope that you now see how important diversity, equity, and inclusion organizations is.
Niels Brabandt
And when the new week begins, just promise me that you will always be slightly more, or a bit more, or a lot more, part of the solution rather than being part of the problem or saying something which might be deeply hurting in these situations. I wish you all the best doing so. Please contact me if you need any help or if I can help you in any way.
Niels Brabandt
As always, at the end of these episodes, there's one thing I say at the very end: thank you very much for your time.