A GERMAN PUNK song has rocketed to the top of the charts 22 years after its release, according to official charts yesterday, following a social media campaign against anti-refugee hate.

“Schrei nach Liebe” (Cry for Love) was first released in 1993 by punk band Die Aerzte, when Germany was hit by a wave of neo-Nazi attacks against immigrants.

The song mocks a “really dumb” fascist whose “violence is only a silent cry for love, your combat boots crave tenderness … oh … asshole!”

According to a translation by The Local news website, the song opens with the lyrics:

You’re really thick as pigshit
That’s why you feel fine
Hate is your attitude
Your blood is always boiling

A music teacher called Gerhard Torges launched the initiative, calling on people to buy the single online or ask for it to be played on the radio, as Germany experiences a spate of anti-refugee attacks by far-right extremists.

The campaign – called “Action Asshole” – rapidly gained traction and just over a week after its launch, the single was at the top of the German charts.

Even the elderly have joined in, with a choir of pensioners seen singing the song, including on a video posted by the tabloid-style newpaper Bild.

Several flashmobs of people singing the song will be staged today in Cologne, Leipzig, Karlsruhe and other German cities.

“Success of this kind is unprecedented in German chart history,” said Mathias Giloth, who runs GfK Entertainment, which publishes Germany’s official music charts.

Austrians and Swiss have also backed the campaign, sending the song to Number 1 in Austria and Number 2 in Switzerland, Gfk Entertainment added.

Die Aerzte (“The Doctors”) said they backed the campaign and did not want to profit from it, adding that all takings from the song would be donated to refugee campaign group Pro Asyl.

“We wish all Nazis and their sympathisers a bad show,” they said on their website.

Contains reporting by AFP.

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