After a warning of anti-Semitism in the context of the nationwide unique Augsburg Peace Day, those responsible canceled a controversial event. First of all, on Wednesday, the FDP and others had warned that anti-Semitic statements were threatened because of the invited speaker at a lecture. The city of Augsburg included the “Right-wing shift in Israel” event in the cultural program for its “Hohen Friedensfest”. In order to avert damage to the city, the lecture will now be removed from the program and offered at a later date, the Augsburg Peace Initiative announced in the evening. The initiative is one of the organizers of the lecture along with other groups.
The speaker announced on the subject “regularly attracts attention in internet blogs with overly generalized criticism of the state of Israel and its Jewish population,” FDP city councilor Lars Vollmar had initially criticized. According to a report by Jewish general there was criticism from other quarters, including the Jewish community in Swabia-Augsburg. Volker Beck, President of the German-Israeli Society, told the newspaper that the Peace Festival’s commitment to peaceful coexistence was “devalued” by the event.
The city administration pointed out that it was not the organizer of the lecture itself. The supporting program is created “participatively together with the most diverse civil society initiatives of the city society”. The city “expressly distances itself from anti-Semitism and racism,” it said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
The Augsburg Peace Festival on August 8th is an official public holiday when factories, offices and shops in the Swabian city remain closed. The special public holiday means that Augsburg has the most public holidays in Germany. A large cultural program is regularly offered before the festival. This year there had already been a political dispute about the orientation of the program, and in the end an extensive offer was announced under the motto “Creativity”.
In this context, the Israel lecture was planned for July 25th. The city’s program said that the government of Israel “now also includes representatives of the radical right who openly advocate the annexation of the Palestinian territories. In addition, the rule of law and democracy are being further dismantled, no longer “only” against Palestinians* directed inwards”. The FDP therefore demanded that Mayor Eva Weber (CSU) “take more care” when selecting the program for which the city is responsible.
The holiday dates back to 1650, when the Protestants in the city first celebrated their equality with the Catholic Church, formulated in the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and achieved in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Today, the city holiday stands in particular for peaceful coexistence of all religions and other groups in the city. That is why Augsburg calls itself a “city of peace”.