Dresden turns back neo-Nazis

[mgc1961]

"Hannah Lichtenberg was six when Allied forces dropped their bombs on Dresden, and she still summons an impressive amount of anger today. "It was bad enough that we had the luck of being hit by more bombs than any other German city," she said. "Now, every year they come out to play war again. Every year."

Like many other Dresden residents, she has had enough of the political fringe that converges on the city for the annual memorial ceremonies commemorating the 1945 firebombing of Dresden. Far-right protesters claim that hundreds of thousands of people died instead of the figure of 25,000 generally accepted by historians. This is not an underground operation, either: The far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which contributes a majority of the demonstrators each year, is part of the state parliament in the eastern state of Saxony. The party has been described by Germany's domestic intelligence agency as "racist, anti-Semitic, revisionist." A 2009 march saw around 6,000 neo-Nazis descend on the Saxon capital, and this year's numbers were expected to be even higher.

As night fell on Saturday, flames lit up the Dresden sky as they do every Feb. 12. This year, however, the blaze didn't come from burning cars, trash cans or barricades set alight by left-wing counterprotesters, but from the torches of peaceful protestors.

Anti-fascist left-wing protesters and police succeeded Saturday in foiling the annual neo-Nazi parade through the city. For Dresden, it was an unexpected triumph against the far right. Earlier in the week, officials had anticipated between 8,000 and 10,000 neo-Nazis would demonstrate during the 65th anniversary of the Dresden bombing -- the biggest neo-Nazi protest in the post-war era. On Friday, an appeals court in the state of Saxony ordered that the neo-Nazi march could go on. In its ruling, however, the court gave police permission to take steps to stop the march if it threatened public safety."

Read that whole article at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,678069,00.html

[DarthDem]

1. Scary

. . . how these divisions still exist in Germany today. The Dresden incident was just a tragedy all-around, with continuing repercussions even in modern times. Thanks for the post.

[mgc1961]

3. My pleasure.

[Doctor_J]

2. Heh. Anti-nazi = "Left wing"

A lot like the US in that respect.