In winter 2015, private broadcaster RTL2 has announced the broadcast of a three-part drama series entitled “Godless – Why People Kill”. The series was presented yesterday at the 22nd Oldenburg Film Festival. In a letter to the channel’s managing director, Andreas Bartl, on Wednesday, the Humanist Association of Germany called on the channel to change the title of the series immediately or to refrain from broadcasting it under this title.
Jump directly to the current supplements: October 6, 2015 | October 16, 2015 | October 22, 2015 The President of the Federal Association, Frieder Otto Wolf, pointed out that the title of the series links a concept of an ideological stance in a generalized form with a motive for killing people. “As you are no doubt aware, the adjective ‘godless’ is a neologism used to describe non-religious people,” said Wolf. In addition, non-religious people generally reject this adjective, as the ending “-less” implies that non-religious and non-believing people are lacking something. “Today, around 25 million citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany do not belong to any religious denomination. The vast majority of them are non-religious, i.e. ‘godless’ in the usual sense of this adjective,” continues Frieder Otto Wolf. “But regardless of the large number of non-religious people in the Federal Republic of Germany and – presumably also within your broadcaster’s audience – the sweeping and suggestive link between a non-religious view of life and the killing of people contained in the series name is unacceptable.” “To make this very clear to you, I would ask you to imagine the series title by replacing the adjective ‘godless’ with terms such as ‘religious’, ‘Christian’, ‘Jewish’, ‘Alevi’ or – to give a non-ideological example – ‘homosexual’. I assume this should make it sufficiently clear why the series title is in no way justifiable.” The Humanist Association announced that, if necessary, it would involve the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media as the supervisory authority of the broadcaster based in Grünwald, Bavaria, or take legal action against the broadcaster’s refusal.
In a letter dated September 30, 2015, the Head of Program Communication at RTL 2 Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG responded to the Humanist Association’s request. In the statement, RTL II stated that it was regrettable if people felt offended by the disputed series title “GOTTLOS – Warum Menschen töten”. This was not the intention. At the same time, the broadcaster “firmly” rejected the accusation of linking non-religious views of life with the killing of people or of generalizing or condemning non-religious views of life. It went on to say that the RTL II adaptation of the Dutch format “The Godless” was based on a “common, colloquial definition of ‘reprehensible’ for ‘godless’, as it is also used in the dictionary.” The President of the Humanist Association responded to this statement with a second letter on October 6, 2015. In it, Frieder Otto Wolf stated that he could not agree with RTL II’s arguments. “Instead, we are currently faced with the very clear problem that the choice of the RTL II series title that we are objecting to does precisely this: to treat non-religious views of life in a generalized manner and – in this case – to connote or equate them in an unjustifiable and deeply negative way,” said Wolf. In order to deepen the explanations from his first letter on the issue at hand and to promote the chance of a rethink on the part of the broadcaster, he explained by means of further explanations why the series title is unacceptable from the perspective of non-religious people. Among other things, he said that the addition of the word “godless” in the German series title with the words “Why people kill” exacerbates the effect compared to the title of the Dutch original. “The fact that the first part of the series title consists of capital letters in RTL II’s own spelling underlines the effect that we believe this series title is deliberately intended to have on the audience,” said Wolf. Finally, the reference to the entry in the Duden.de online dictionary does not offer any viable arguments either, as “godless” cannot be seen as a synonym for “reprehensible”. However, if the series title is changed to “Verwerflich – Warum Menschen töten”, the Humanist Association believes that this problem has been solved. RTL II has now been asked for a final statement by October 16, 2015. In a letter dated the same day, the President of the Humanist Association of Germany contacted the Bibliographisches Institut GmbH (Dudenverlag) and requested a revision of the entry for the term “gottlos” on Duden.de. In contrast to existing print editions of the dictionary, the term is described there with numerous negative and inaccurate terms or is equated with them as a synonym.
In his letter, Frieder Otto Wolf stated, among other things: “Well aware of the history of the origin of the term ‘gottlos’, whose (colloquial) use can still be observed today in some parts of the German-speaking world, we consider the description currently found on Duden.de to be partly out of date and in urgent need of renewal.” From today’s perspective, this is to be regarded as outdated, inappropriate and erroneous, as descriptions of this term with adjectives such as “reprehensible”, “sacrilegious”, “heillos”, “pietätlos”, “rotzfrech”, “schmutzig” are inaccurate and defamatory. Today, it is no longer only non-religious people who would come to this conclusion, but also informed members of the Christian churches and other religious communities. To illustrate the arguments for the necessary revision, Wolf asked the publishing house management to “imagine a situation in which, for example, the entry on the term ‘believer’ would be described with terms such as ‘irrational’, ‘insane’, ‘ignorant’, ‘anti-scientific’ or ‘fanatical’. Despite the historically grown usage, a revision of the entry on Duden.de is therefore absolutely necessary. Wolf concluded by explaining that the publisher could also help to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary conflicts caused by insufficient linguistic awareness and thus “contribute to peaceful and tolerant coexistence in society.”
Addendum from October 16, 2015
Last Tuesday, the Bibliographisches Institut GmbH (Dudenverlag) responded to a corresponding letter from the President of the Federal Association, Frieder Otto Wolf. In the reply, the editorial team of Dudenverlag expressed its thanks for the information on the need to revise the entry on the term “gottlos”. They also informed us that the order of the readings in the Duden Universal Dictionary and on Duden.de has now been changed. For technical reasons, however, this change will only become apparent over the next few weeks. Dudenverlag also stated that the editorial team had not yet been able to develop a satisfactory solution for the adjectives listed as synonyms on Duden.de. This is also for technical reasons. “We are working on finding a satisfactory solution quickly,” the Duden publishing house responded. Frieder Otto Wolf welcomed the change to the readings of the term “gottlos” in the print and online dictionary announced in the Duden publishing house’s statement on Friday as an important first step. The Humanist Association also said that it was very important to it that satisfactory changes were made overall. “This is not least because we have a large number of growing projects in the education sector (such as the school subject Humanistic Life Studies in Berlin and Brandenburg), in which the Duden is used daily as a standard reference work.” Wolf went on to formulate more specific expectations for the revision of the term “gottlos”, which is still necessary so that the Duden “accurately reflects the current situation of language usage among the vast majority of German speakers”. In his response to the Duden publishing house’s statement, he suggested, among other things, that inaccurate and additionally pejorative adjectives should be supplemented by additions commonly used in the Duden, such as “obsolete pejorative” or “coarse pejorative”, in order to classify them sufficiently as an aid to describing the term. For other entries, such as the term “unbelieving”, there are already sufficient objective descriptions, so he formulated “both the hope and the expectation that a further revision of the term ‘godless’ can follow these good examples.”
Addendum from October 22, 2015
After the broadcaster RTL II let the deadline for a statement pass last Friday without the requested response, the President of the Humanist Association informed the President, the management and the 48 members of the Media Council of the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for New Media (BLM) about the facts and the associated problems on Thursday. Frieder Otto Wolf called on the representatives of the BLM and the Media Council “urgently” to work towards changing the title of the series or to refrain from broadcasting it under this title. In addition, the Humanist Association is currently examining the possibilities of taking legal action against the start of broadcasting with the title “GOTTLOS – Warum Menschen töten” and obtaining an injunction.
On the topic
Report on the discrimination of non-religious people in Germany
