After the decision of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial to ban AfD members, further German memorial sites support the process. "We would do the same if we had a similar case," said Jörg Skriebeleit, head of the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial in Bavaria. Flossenbürg itself has not yet experienced targeted hostility by AFD members, but an emergency plan has already been worked out.
The plan specifies exactly what expressions are allowed and how violations are dealt with. If, for example, the inscription on a T-shirt proves a sympathy for a right-wing political outlook, it is addressed to the visitors. "We then say: We do not exclude you from the visit, but you have to take off your T-shirt or turn it to the left," says Skriebeleit. The highest escalation level is the reference from the site of the memorial.
In Hamburg, there is also an internal discussion about whether it makes sense to have a visitor registration system, says Oliver von Wrochem, head of the study center at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. "If someone expresses unconstitutional or shows certain symbols, he can of course be removed from the site today." But it's all about the borderline cases, with which one must find a way to deal.
The Neuengamme memorial also did not experience targeted hostility. "But I think the reaction of Buchenwald Memorial is absolutely justified," von Wrochem said. Every German memorial observes the current developments with concern.
Previously, the memorial of the former concentration camp Buchenwald had granted AFD members a house ban. On Friday, a wreath for the victims was laid there with survivors of the Holocaust and representatives of the Thuringian state government, party members were not allowed to attend.
The Foundation considers it necessary "that representatives of the AfD at a memorial service in these places not participate, as long as they do not credibly distance themselves from the anti-democratic, anti-human rights and history revisionist positions in their party," it said in a statement.
At the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, more than 56,000 people died from torture, medical experiments, hunger and illness until the end of the Second World War. In special facilities, more than 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot. It was one of the largest concentration camps on German soil. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists abducted around 270,000 people from all over Europe.