German Town Wages Quirky War Against Neo-Nazis

Sausages, samba and saws disrupt rallies
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 31, 2007 6:39 PM CDT
German Town Wages Quirky War Against Neo-Nazis
A policeman passes a huge banner showing concentration camp inmates and reading "Never again", fixed by residents to protest against a planned demonstration by German right wing National Democratic Party (NPD) supporters at the southern German town of Graefenberg, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Christof...   (Associated Press)

Inhabitants of the small German town of Gräfenberg have taken up ideological arms against far-right demonstrators from the National Democratic Party, Der Spiegel reports, running loud saws, blaring samba music, and projecting images of concentration-camp victims to disrupt their rallies. The conflict started when the town's mayor declared a war memorial private property, preventing a neo-Nazi group from rallying there.

That group has since been banned, but the NPD—a party represented in several provincial legislatures although its views are derived from Nazi ideology—began protesting the mayor's move. The town has since been overrun by NPD rallies at least a dozen times, prompting the citizens of Gräfenberg to combat them with colorfully symbolic counter-demonstrations. They've even sold sausages under anti-Nazi mottos. (More National Democratic Party stories.)

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