Germany: Torch-wielding neo-Nazis march in Nuremberg
German prosecutors were considering filing criminal charges after a video emerged that showed members of the extreme-right NPD party and Wodans Erben Germanien group marching through the northern Bavarian city of Nuremberg.
The prosecutors were deciding if there was “evidence of incitement of the masses” at the event, which was held without permission, Nuremberg’s left-leaning mayor Ulrich Maly said on Tuesday.
Police representatives reported that 18 right-wing extremists marched past a refugee center last Saturday, with police showing up to identify and record them. The participants declared themselves members of the NPD and Wodans Erben Germanien. Police ordered them to disperse and then left the scene.
After the police withdrew, the demonstrators gathered again and marched with lit torches to the area used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and his associates for annual rallies from 1923 to 1938. Torches were often used as a prop by the supporters of the original Nazi party and its allies.
The NPD and Wodans Erben Germanien supporters also took pictures of themselves at a stage once used by Hitler.
“This is an event which should alarm all of us across Germany and especially in Nuremberg — the fact that such symbols are used at places like this,” Maly said.
In addition to Nazi rallies, Nuremberg is also known for the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 at a special parliamentary session in the Bavarian city.
After World War II, the Allies organized the Nuremberg Trials to convict Nazi war criminals, including air force chief Hermann Göring, Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and racial ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.
dj/amp (epd, dpa)
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