Confronting neo-Nazis head-on in Germany

A medieval hamlet gains recognition for their demonstrations against a neo-Nazi group's marches.

Supporters of the National Democratic Party have been marching in Gräfenberg since 1999.

BERLIN // A small town in Bavaria is waging a colourful campaign of demonstrations to stop what it calls the "terror" of monthly marches by black-clad neo-Nazis bent on gaining access to a war memorial. The people of the idyllic medieval town of Gräfenberg, population 4,100, have gained nationwide recognition over the past two years for their imaginative ploys to counter the far Right protesters, such as playing loud samba music and running deafening chainsaws to drown out their speeches.

The National Democratic Party (NPD), a legitimate party despite its barely concealed support for Nazi ideology, said it will march through Gräfenberg at least once a month until the town lets it honour fallen German soldiers from both world wars at the memorial, a proud rotunda topped with the German iron cross and which stands on a hill just outside the town centre. The council blocked off the monument in 1999 because it wanted to stop neo-Nazi wreath-laying ceremonies it saw as hero worship aimed at spreading far Right ideology.

The National Democrats began staging monthly marches in 2006 to protest against the decision. Neither side is prepared to back down in what has become a war of attrition that could go on indefinitely. For the past 24 months, demonstrators wearing combat boots, many with their faces masked by hoods, scarves or sunglasses, regularly trudge through the town holding burning torches and flags and beating drums in menacing scenes that evoke Nazi-era rallies. There have been more than 30 such marches since 2006.

The number of marchers ranges from 50 to about 200, and they mainly come from larger cities nearby, including Nuremberg. None come from Gräfenberg, the anti-Nazi campaigners said. So far there has been little violence. "It's a show of strength aimed at intimidating the population," Gräfenberg 's mayor, Werner Wolf, said in an interview. Mr Wolf cofounded a group called the Citizens' Forum to organise non-violent counter-demonstrations.

"I can assure you we're not going to get tired, we're going to keep on resisting them. I'm hoping the NPD will lose steam after their poor showing in local elections this year and that they'll refrain from this terror in coming months." The NPD also said it remains determined to fight on. It held a demonstration in Gräfenberg on Oct 31 and plans another one tomorrow, a day before Germany's national day of mourning, when the country commemorates the war dead of all nations in a sombre, low-key fashion.

"We'll keep on marching there as long as it takes," said Axel Michaelis, the NPD's party manager for Bavaria. "We're going to carry on showing the people of Gräfenberg that war memorials are for everyone, especially us, as a national party that feels connected with the fallen soldiers." Mr Wolf said he and other members of the Citizens' Forum had received anonymous threats in recent years. "I got an e-mail stating: 'Those who fight us must expect to get hurt', and I had a bag of paint hurled at my house," he said.

The names and photos of fellow campaigners had been published on far Right leaflets, and demonstrations had been held in front of their homes, Mr Wolf said. "It really gets under your skin when you're affected," he said. The NPD's status as a legal party makes it virtually impossible to ban its demonstrations, and Mr Wolf said he would be opposed to changing the law to curb the marches. "We think a democracy must be able to withstand what we're experiencing without resorting to limiting the freedom of assembly."

Gräfenberg 's campaign to resist the far Right has won it acclaim throughout Germany and is regarded as a model for other communities struggling to keep out neo-Nazis. Eastern German communities especially need to take a leaf out of Gräfenberg 's book, say anti-Nazi campaigners. Although the NPD's nationwide support is negligible, the party has achieved strong gains in the economically depressed former communist east where it is represented in numerous local councils and two state assemblies.

The rise in youth unemployment since unification in 1990 has boosted the appeal of the far Right especially among young men in the east, and town councils lack the will and the support to mobilise resistance against a movement that is openly racist and praises Hitler and his henchmen. "Instead of reacting to the far Right by just looking the other way, the Citizens' Forum chose open confrontation and has shown exemplary courage," said a committee that awarded Gräfenberg the Würzburg Peace Prize this year. The award is given annually by political parties and organisations in the Bavarian city of Würzburg.

Gräfenberg residents from all walks of life have joined in the counter-demonstrations. "Party affiliation or income don't play a role; we've got academics as well as unemployed people taking part," Mr Wolf said. "What's fascinating is that there's no elected chairman, everyone works in areas where they have strengths, and no one's forced to do anything." Gräfenberg comes to a standstill whenever a demonstration takes place because hundreds of police are brought in as a precaution. The main street is closed to traffic for several hours while the neo-Nazis march through town to the foot of the hill, gather at the fence blocking access to the memorial, and then return to the train station.

Each time, they are outnumbered by about 200 to 400 counter-demonstrators who regularly surprise them with creative ways of expressing resistance. "When they staged a torch-light parade one winter evening we illuminated the whole town with floodlights to offset the impact of the torches," Mr Wolf said. On another occasion they wrapped themselves in white sheets and laid down on the market square like corpses while recordings of Jewish elegies were played. They have projected on to façades behind far Right speakers giant photographs of the Auschwitz death camp. Their sit-down demonstrations have stopped the neo-Nazis from assembling in the main square.

Yet another time, the Citizens' Forum draped a transparency showing the entrance to Theresienstadt concentration camp over the city gate through which the neo-Nazis must march. One rally was met by hundreds of people with brooms and brushes, many in orange dustman's vests, to symbolically "sweep" the far Right out of town. A local firm once donated ?5 (Dh23) per demonstrator at an NPD march to an organisation that helps people quit the far Right scene. "We had someone sitting in a tennis referee's chair and counting them as they walked past," said Mr Wolf with a laugh.

"They can do what they want," said Mr Michaelis of the NPD. "We'll hold out longer." He said the NPD had offered to stop its monthly marches if Gräfenberg allows it to access to the memorial just once. "That will never happen," Mr Wolf said. [e-mail]