Nazis Mobilize For May Day In Leipzig

Arm the Spirit, 16 April 1997

Authorities in the East German city of Leipzig have banned a planned May Day demonstration by neo-nazis organized by the youth wing of the far-right NPD, the ‘Junge Nationaldemokraten’ (JN). According to our information, allowing the march to proceed would result in violent clashes, security official Wasserman told the left-wing Germany daily Junge Welt. We will attempt to maintain this ban at all levels of judicial appeal. But the NPD is proceeding with its plans to mobilize fascists to Leipzig on May 1st under the motto There Will Be A Rally In Leipzig On May Day!, and the group is already appealing the city's ban. The NPD, hoping to build on its successful demo March 1st in Munich [when some 5,000 skinheads and former nazi soldiers marched against a photo exhibit detailing war crimes by Germany's regular 'Wehrmacht' army during World War II—ATS], is distributing propaganda literature predicting 10,000 participants in Leipzig.

Plans are already underway for a nationwide antifascist mobilization to Leipzig. One spokesman for a coalition of groups organizing to stop the nazi march in Leipzig told the German daily Junge Welt: We're afraid that antifas outside of Leipzig may just figure the fascist march will be banned, or that very few nazis will actually take part. But we are basing our mobilization on the assumption that the nazis will be able to mobilize just as many people as they did in Munich, which was a ‘victory’ for them, and that now they are planning for May Day.

A march by neo-nazis on May Day could be the starting part for a new wave of fascist attacks on refugees and leftists. But it's not yet clear if Leipzig will in fact be the marching point for the nazis. The far-right National Info-Telephone Middle Germany has been saying Whether Leipzig, Dresden, or Berlin, the mobilization has progressed far enough that we can count on 5,000 to 10,000 participants. Fascists from the JN proved how flexible they can be last year, when a planned May Day rally by the far-right was banned in Nurnberg, so about 200 nazis marched in East Berlin instead.

Berlin's right-wing Interior Minister, Jorg Schonbohm, has stated he will not ban a planned JN march. Based on this official tolerance, nazis from the so-called national-socialist wing of the neo-nazi scene, groups like ‘Die Nationalen’ and fascists from the outlawed FAP party such as Detlef Nolde, are planning their own May Day march in Berlin, under the motto of Freedom For Christian Wendt!, the publisher of the fascist propaganda organ Berlin-Brandenburger Zeitung, who was sentenced to a year in prison in January 1997 for inciting racial hatred.

Smash The Fascists—Wherever They March!