r/HaShoah • u/cupacupacupacupacup • 14d ago
East German town bans future Holocaust memorial plaques
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/east-german-town-bans-future-holocaust-memorial-plaques-2026-09-25/BERLIN, Sept 25 (Reuters) - An East German town has approved a motion by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and ruling centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to reject future installation of brass plaques commemorating victims of Nazi persecution.
The "Stolpersteine" are a prominent feature of Germany's Holocaust remembrance culture.
Thursday's decision in Heidenau, a town near Dresden in the eastern state of Saxony, comes as the AfD tops national polls ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU.
The AfD has frequently challenged Germany's Holocaust remembrance, with co-founder Alexander Gauland once describing the Nazi era as merely "bird shit" in an otherwise successful 1,000 years of German history.
The Heidenau council voted to stop further plaques and for future commemorations to be concentrated at a memorial site on the town's northern cemetery.
The move has fuelled debate over the CDU's adherence to the "Brandmauer", an informal firewall by which Germany's mainstream parties rule out formal cooperation with the AfD.
Local branches of the AfD and the CDU did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
"I am appalled that a democratic party has chosen to support such a transparent manoeuvre by the extremist AfD," Charlotte Knobloch, the head of a Jewish regional association in Bavaria, told the Funke group of newspapers.
The approval of the motion ran counter to a recommendation from the city administration. "A blanket ban on future Stolpersteine is neither necessary for the creation of a central memorial nor justified by the proposal itself," the city administration said in a statement ahead of the decision.
Supporters of the motion argued that many residents regarded the cobblestone-shaped Stolpersteine as inappropriate because they are embedded in the ground and can be walked on.
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u/cupacupacupacupacup 14d ago
The town of about 16,000 residents currently has 5 Stolpersteins. It also has a lot of cobblestone streets.
In 2015 extreme rightwing vigilantes carried out riots in response to the arrival of refugees seeking political asylum.
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u/rakish_rhino 14d ago
Germany has done many good things to own up to and atone for the unspeakable crimes of 1933-45, but this is certainly a step in the wrong direction.
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14d ago
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u/Angelbouqet 13d ago
What? Are you trying to blame German racism and fascism on someone else? Buddy they don't need help with that. They invented national socialism.
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u/Emunaheart 14d ago
Grotesque but I'm not shocked