Germany - Leftwing Threatens Violence on Dresden Remembrance Day

[Menydh]

Threat of extremist violence looms at Dresden ceremony

Financial Times
February 10

The 60th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers on February 13 1945 was originally billed as acelebration of "peace and reconciliation" between Germany and its former enemies. //

Instead, the rebuilt city is bracing for a potentially explosive clash between right- and leftwing extremists, with both camps claiming ownership of the symbolic date only three weeks after the world paused to remember the liberation of Auschwitz.

The National Democratic party (NPD), a far-right group that entered the Saxon parliament in September - its first such achievement since 1968 - has called on supporters nationwide to march through the city in honour of the victims of what it calls a "bombing holocaust".

A loose coalition of leftwingers calling itself "No Tears for Krauts", meanwhile, has said it would "attack the Nazis and the revisionism of the bourgeois mob".

The police expect 1,000 anarchists to face 5,000 far-right extremists, with up to 100,000 visitors to the official ceremonies in the middle.

Similar confrontations have taken place since the mid-1990s, but never involving such numbers. The date's symbolism and the NPD's widely publicised provocations in recent weeks have sparked fears that the far-right might succeed in hijacking the event.

The NPD makes little secret of its intentions: "We want to honour German victims. They were the victims of rabid anti-German hatred that long predated 1933," says Karl Richter, the party's "scientific adviser", whose office wall sports a photograph of himself in Wehrmacht uniform when he acted as an extra in a recent film about Hitler's last days.

Mainstream politicians are struggling with a proper response to the small but vocal far-right parties that are eager to make headlines around the world during Sunday's celebrations in Dresden.

Georg Milbradt, the Christian Democrat premier of Saxony, Dresden's home state, says he does not believe "grand moral pronouncements" can durably draw voters away from such parties.

"I cannot stop the NPD from speaking or tabling motions," he says, chin sinking deeper into his chest. "What I know is that up to 80 per cent of their voters had economic motives. These are not anti-Semites and xenophobes. We should talk to them and show them how absurd the NPD's programme is."

Raimund Grafe, a senior official at the Social Democratic party, which has been sharing power with Mr Milbradt's conservative Christian Democrats since the summer, agrees, arguing that patient grassroots political work only - and new jobs in this economically weak region - can erode support for the NPD.

After 62 years of dictatorship in East Germany, he says, culture there "lacks democratic depth. We need to work on civil society. Democracy is a slow, tedious and imperfect system, which people must learn to use".

At the same time Mr Milbradt wants foreign observers to know that "today's Germany is not Weimar in 1933". This will be among his main messages when he visits Japan, the latest in a series of "road shows", next month to promote Saxony as a tourism and investment destination.

"Our message to other countries is that the vast majority of the population does not support the NPD. They have no influence on the regional government and their chances of ever coming to power are nil."

Such reassurances, however, will barely matter if banner-waving, shaven- headed men take over the Dresden old town on Sunday and steal the media show. "We need to keep them at the periphery so that they do not become a focus of attention," says Mr Milbradt.

Dresden's City Hall, which is overseeing the official ceremonies, has drawn up plans to keep the focus elsewhere. Kai Schulz, a city spokesman, says the police have banned political demonstrations within a triangle extending from the synagogue to the Frauenkirche, the recently rebuilt church whose sandstone bulk towers over Dresden's reconstructed baroque centre.

While this should help keep the far-right away from the main crowd - and from television cameras - the city's main secret weapon is a handful of eye-catching events added to the official programme at the last minute to capture the media's attention. Peaceful opponents of the NPD, with a white rose pinned to their lapels, will gather on Theaterplatz for a giant candlelit vigil on Sunday night. And in a move kept secret until this week, the main nave of the Frauenkirche will be open to visitors for the first time, eight months before its consecration.

"This is guaranteed to draw the crowds," says Mr Schulz. "And it will certainly be the best photo opportunity for February 13."



[source]

[Ederico]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

A loose coalition of leftwingers calling itself "No Tears for Krauts", meanwhile, has said it would "attack the Nazis and the revisionism of the bourgeois mob".

How pictoresque and original.

[Milesian]

That struck me as well, Edric.
Left-Wingers using a blatantly "racist" and offensive slur like that?

We all know the double standrads but now they are brazen enough not to hide their contempt for their own people. The usual suspects involved I'm sure - traitors and self-haters

Reminds me of an old Irish song:

"He's all a knave or half a slave, who slights his country thus...."

[Aeternitas]

How idiotic.

[Awar]

Very retarded. Unfortunately, such people are on the rise here in Serbia too.
I wonder in which way one could counter their positions in discussion.
They are very similar to skinheads, only make even less sense.

[Ederico]

Originally Posted by Awar

I wonder in which way one could counter their positions in discussion.
They are very similar to skinheads, only make even less sense.

So you can kiss goodbye a discussion then....

[Prussian]

Originally Posted by Awar

Very retarded. Unfortunately, such people are on the rise here in Serbia too.

Indeed it is at the very least. It seems a disturbing trend on the rise in most of the modern world.

Originally Posted by Awar

I wonder in which way one could counter their positions in discussion.
They are very similar to skinheads, only make even less sense.

I don't think they could really provide a strong & convincing arguement as to why violence is necessary with regards to this.

More then likely one would experience a mouthful of the poorly generalised rhetoric of slogan junkies as to lay claim to their validation for such actions. Basically an example of a constant case of rhetoric diarrheora from the feeble minds of imbeciles seduced by the belief of their own grandeur in this regard.

Afterall their position on this is absolute, no need to explain their position.