In Freital, an AfD politician is supposed to remember the Nazi victims

Freital town sign

Photo: Arno Burgi/dpa

Next weekend the victims of the Holocaust will be remembered in Freital, Saxony.

The speakers on Remembrance Day will also include a member of the AfD state parliament.

This was confirmed by the council of elders and the city's mayor, as reported by MDR.

The decision was made at a special meeting of the Freital city council.

According to council member Harry Retz, it is not known which AfD politician should give the speech.

However, everyone involved hoped that the speech and the day would be peaceful, the SPD member said, according to the report.

A democracy must endure the planned speech, Retz is quoted as saying.

Last December, the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the state association of the AfD as “certainly right-wing extremist”.

The reason for the special meeting was criticism of the AfD's planned speech at the commemoration on January 27th.

There are clear regulations in Freital as to who gives the speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day: every year it is a different faction of the city council's turn.

As the MDR reports, the event is organized by the Freital city administration on behalf of the city council and the mayor.

After it was discussed at the city council meeting on January 11, 2024 that an AfD representative should give a speech on a regular basis, resistance arose.

When asked by MDR, the city's mayor, Uwe Rumberg (Conservative Center Voters' Association), expressed incomprehension about the outrage: "Whether everyone likes it or not: the AfD faction sits democratically elected on the city council.

And there is a procedure for the rotation of speeches that has been approved by all sides, which the Council of Elders even confirmed again at short notice due to the current sensitivities. In this respect, he does not understand public outrage.

Rumberg warned against “instrumentalizing public remembrance or putting it in the shadow of an ideology.”

He expects Holocaust Remembrance Day to be “peaceful and dignified.”

An alliance of the Greens, the Left and the SPD has announced a “contrast program” for Remembrance Day.

First, according to the information, there will be a “democratic walk” during which the offices of the SPD, the Greens and the Left will be visited.

Portraits of people who are involved in Saxony are shown there.

The organizers then want to head to Peace Square and lay a wreath at the memorial there.

On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by soldiers of the Red Army.

The day has been a memorial day for the victims of National Socialism in Germany since 1996.