Motion for Nazi commemoration in Saxony: CDU shakes hands with AfD

dpa | In Heidenau, Saxony, near Dresden, no more stumbling blocks will be laid in memory of victims of National Socialism. A motion from city councilors from the AfD and CDU was passed by a majority in the evening, as the city administration announced to the dpa news agency. There were 13 yes votes, 6 no votes and one abstention.

In a cross-party motion for a resolution together with the “Upper Elbe Alliance for More Democracy,” representatives of both parties called for stumbling blocks to be rejected “in public streets and sidewalks” in the future. Bild had previously reported.

Many citizens, relatives and initiatives do not consider this form of remembrance of the victims of National Socialism to be appropriate, the application said. Instead, the commemoration should preferably take place in the city's northern cemetery, so that "direct entry into the memorial elements is excluded."

The administration had recommended rejecting the proposal. “Presence in public space in particular enables a broad perception and direct engagement with history,” she wrote in an assessment of the application.

In Heidenau in the Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains district, there are so far stumbling blocks at two locations - including in memory of the former mayor Paul Gröger. Last year, the Alternative Culture and Education Center Saxon Switzerland, based in neighboring Pirna, applied for further stumbling blocks to be laid.

Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, said according to the statement: "This is a transparent and shabby attempt to throw Heidenau victims of the Nazis out of the city again and to dispose of them where, in the AfD's opinion, remembrance has long belonged: in the cemetery." The fact that CDU MPs “reach out to the AfD for such shabbiness” is a scandal.

The Stolpersteine ​​form of commemoration has been around since the 1990s - and is now in many European countries. The small stones, which are usually financed by donations, are laid at the last known place of residence or work of victims of National Socialism - their names and dates of life are written on a brass plate on the top of the stones.

In Munich, according to a city council decision, stumbling blocks will not be laid on city property. They can be found primarily on private property - and are also permitted on properties that belong to the Free State of Bavaria. Instead, memorial signs with photos and brief life dates in front of residential buildings draw attention to the fate of the people who used to live there - before they were torn from their everyday lives by the Nazis.

Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, vehemently rejected the stumbling blocks. As a child she experienced the Nazi terror in Munich. “In my mind’s eye I see the people who were repeatedly kicked while lying on the ground and who were kicked into the vans with heavy leather, steel-capped boots,” she described.