Neo Nazi mobilization in Dortmund on anti-war day

German neo-nazis bizarrely appropriated the Antiwar Day marking the outbreak of WWII as an occasion to rally their forces and show their strength. The call went out for a nationwide mass gathering and march from the whole republic and abroad to assemble in Dortmund. Fearing trouble, the authorities mobilised 3000 armed police with water cannon on Saturday morning.

The neonazis, mainly the Autonomous Nationalists, staged a march through the Northern part of the city, a heavily immigrant area. Instead of showing strength or growth, however, they only managed to assemble 750 people. Opposing them were 10,000 citizens from the political parties, unions, churches etc who assembled in a separate anti-"brown" demonstration. Plus 1500 militant youth who were stopped from preventing the neonazis march and turned their anger on the police, fighting them with pepperspray and stones. Instead of a show of strength, the neonazis have documented that their forces seem to be stagnating. But they remain a danger in that their frustration leads them to violent attacks on the offices of the left parties and on individual prominent antifascists.

Today Sunday sees the regional state elections in Mecklenburg Vorpommern, a largely agricultural Land in the north-east; here the nationalist NPD have been building up support in the villages amongst the disaffected youth and unemployed for several years and have gathered over 4% of the vote. They take up issues like working conditions, school closures and the like and present themselves as respectable local politicians. The SPD has been in coalition here with the CDU for several years and although the leftwing Linke has some support in the former DDR Land they are not gaining enough support amongst the youth. And so the NPD have more or less a clear run in presenting themselves as a party of protest. Amongst the youth, the NPD enjoys only slightly less support than the SPD. On Sunday evening / Monday morning we shall see if the NPD has succeeded in clearing the 5% electoral hurdle win seats in the Land parliament in addition to the councillors they have at local level.


Walter Held