As every year on the day before “Volkstrauertrag” [a similar holiday to memorial day] neonazis gathered in Wunsiedel to hold a march through the small town in Upper Franconia. All in all 250 have come to walk quietly through the town, carry torches and listen to music. Dogma for neonazis at this event of condolescence ist not to attack counter protest and press. So the march stayed relatively calm.
Antifacist demonstration – “Helden vom Sockel hauen”
On “Indymedia” activists released this text asking people to come to the demonstration:
https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/157191
Approximately 150 antifacist demonstrators came to show their mischief with neonazis marching through the small city and commemorating nazi war criminals. From the beginning on riot-force police from Bamberg was on site in a massive scale. Police controlled every single protestor arriving on site and collected names of nazi-opposers in a list. Some punks had to take of their shoes during a control. The demonstration then passed by a lady that later also appeared at the neonazi demonstration. She held up a sign demanding Merkel zu step back and be replaced by Sylvia Stolz – holocaust denier.
All in all the demonstration stayed very peaceful.
Neonazi march
Before the march reminding “the fallen heroes” of the nazi regime started, neo-nazis had food and got together at the same spot as last year. Amongst the crowd of neonazis: Leaders of the party “Der III. Weg”, Peter R. (attacked antifacist in Nuremberg 2010) and also known PEGIDA Munich members.
Concerning one PEGIDA Munich member – especially surprising because PEGIDA always pretends to have nothing to do with the neonazi scene – used to take pictures of colleagues and me at early PEGIDA marches.
Along the route “Wunsiedel ist Bunt” placed signs following the fundraiser of “EXIT Deutschland”. Last year neonazis were tricked to raise 10€ for every marched meter which led to 10.000€ being raised.
With my colleague Felix Benneckenstein I shot a documentary last year unmasking “Simon” that tried to infiltrate us and collect information about where we live and also documented the fundraiser:
This year the neo-nazis themsleves announced to hold a fundraiser. For every counter protestor the party supposedly gets 1€ for their election campaign from an anonymous funder.
Also important to mention: Thomas S. Wulff’s speech talking about the attacks in Paris and that people should rather commemorate all fallen soldiers and the ones that were executed after the war in Landsberg, Nuremberg and Hamel then the ones killed in Paris.
Video of a part of the speech:
Thomas S. Wulff gedenkt anstatt der #ParisAttacks – “Helden” denen z.B. In NbG der Prozess gemacht wurde #wunsiedel pic.twitter.com/OhMGLWDBnL
— 24mmjournalism (@24mmjournalism) 14. November 2015
He ended his speech with:
“Heil unserm Reich” – Thomas S. Wulff
In the end the typical scenario calling all the fallen soldiers took place. The march then was over.
Picture Gallery
My impressions (Unlicesend usage of my pictures will lead to consequences as stated in german law “UrhG“):
