AfD Bans Memorials

From the DW:

“AfD, CDU ban new Holocaust 'stumbling stones' in Heidenau”

The town of Heidenau, near Dresden, has banned new Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) on public streets, with the center-right CDU and the far-right AfD voting together to stop the installation of new memorial plaques bearing the names of Holocaust victims.

The Stolpersteine are comprised of a concrete cube with a metal plaque on top that bears the victim's name. They are often seen in German streets, installed just slightly higher than the surrounding walking surface, often near the houses of people targeted by the Nazi regime.

German artist Gunter Demnig started the project in the early 1990s. While most of the 128,000 such paving stones were installed in Germany, they have also been placed in 30 other countries affected by the Nazi regime, making them the largest decentralized monument in the world. The initiators of the Heidenau ban argue that, while remembering Holocaust victims is an essential task, the placement of stones leads to "passersby walking over or even stepping onto the names of the victims." They suggested honoring Holocaust victims at one of the city's cemeteries instead.

Demnig, now 78, has rejected this argument. The artist said that remembrance must be visible where people used to live, and that stumbling stones make history tangible for local young people. At the same time, he said he saw the ban coming due to the outcome of recent state elections in Germany. "After the electoral successes of the AfD, something like this was completely expected," Demnig was quoted as saying by the DPA news agency. He expressed hope that the Heidenau ban would remain an exception and pledged to "push on now more than ever" with his work. Demnig also accused the center-right CDU (Christian Democratic Union) of abandoning Christian values. He said the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz "should maybe drop the C" from their acronym "because they have dropped Christianity already."

Many others also responded with outrage to the CDU's decision to join forces with the AfD to pass the motion. The move comes with Chancellor Merz already facing a political crisis over his party's poor electoral performance, and raises questions about the political "firewall" against the far right which mainstream political parties in Germany have maintained to keep the AfD out of power.

On Friday, one of the top two leaders of Germany's Green Party, Felix Banaszak, described the move as "a scandal." Banaszak pointed to the current debate on right-wing extremism and the rise of the AfD, saying that everything must be done "to keep alive the memories of those who were persecuted and killed."

The International Auschwitz Committee also slammed the CDU support to the motion as scandalous. "This is a transparent and despicable attempt to drive Nazi victims in Heidenau out of the city once again and dispose of them where, according to the AfD, their memory has belonged a long time ago — at the cemetery," said Christoph Heubner, the organization's executive vice president.

^ This is the beginning of Germany going back to 1933.

The AfD is a Neo-Nazi Party that is Anti-Semitic (ie. Anti-Jewish), that believe in Holocaust Denial (even though it is Illegal in Germany to do so), DO not Believe Germany should have any Memorials or Museums to the 6 Million Jewish Men, Women and Children that the Germans killed from 1933-1945, want to make Kosher Food illegal in Germany and making it illegal to have these Holocaust Memorials is only the start of their campaign to create Germany’s Fourth Reich (Germany’s Third Reich was under Hitler.)

That fact that the CDU helped the AfD in banning these Holocaust Memorials is just as disgraceful as what the AfD stands for.

The AfD should be banned inside Germany since it continuously breaks German Federal Law (ie. Holocaust Denial, being a Neo-Nazi Group, etc.) yet sadly the German Federal Government allows them to continue to spread their hate and discrimination across the country.

Some people may think this is only a small step, but it starts with a small step to see how far you are able to go and we saw that with the Nazis and we are now seeing that with the AfD.

Any German who doesn’t stand up against the AfD is supporting their hatred and any Anti-Jewish Violence that later comes from them. ^

  https://www.dw.com/en/afd-cdu-ban-new-holocaust-stumbling-stones-in-heidenau/a-79433919