A convicted Shoah denier should be released: that’s what a right-wing extremist who has also been convicted of incitement to hatred demands. And he wants to use a rally entitled “Freedom for all political prisoners,” which Markus Haintz, a lawyer from the lateral thinker scene, is calling for Wednesday in Munich. Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish Community (IKG) in Munich, is “absolutely shocked”. The 90-year-old survivor of Nazi terror says: “This rally on this day and in this place is a provocation against commemoration and thus against the democracy that is based on it.”
Right next to the memorial service
Haintz is not only demanding freedom for conspiracy ideologist Oliver Janich, who is imprisoned in the Philippines and who, according to experts, has been spreading anti-Semitic ideas on the Internet for years. He wants to do that on November 9 of all days, the 84th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom night. And with a demonstration train that is to start on Munich’s Marienplatz. There, however, the guests will arrive at the same time who want to commemorate the persecuted, expelled and murdered Jewish people of Munich from 7 p.m. in the neighboring Old Town Hall.
While at the Knobloch commemoration ceremony, Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) and the historian Sybille Steinbacher remember the fate of the people who were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp 80 years ago with the first deportations, conspiracy believers and pandemic deniers represent just a few meters further in front of Munich City Hall and right-wing extremists the myth that there are “political prisoners” in the Federal Republic who need to be freed.
Calls for murder and NS trivialisation
Haintz, as the initiator of the rally on this “German fateful day”, as he calls it, means Oliver Janich, who is in prison in the Philippines and against whom the Munich public prosecutor’s office is now investigating on suspicion of insult and public incitement to commit crimes. and “lateral thinking” founder Michael Ballweg, who has been in custody since the end of June on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. Ballweg agitated against corona measures and vaccinations with NS relativization and proximity to the anti-Semitic conspiracy cult QAnon. His comrade-in-arms Janich publicly called for the killing of members of the German government and the Jewish patron George Soros, and interpreted the Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of an alleged Jewish world conspiracy. Born in Munich, Janich failed in the 2014 local elections when he tried to run as a mayor candidate for a “party of reason”.
Demonstration against anti-corona measures in November. 2020 in Leipzig: Nikolai Nerling in conversation with police officers.
(Photo: opokupix via www.imago-images.de/imago images/opokupix)
Demonstrating for these “political prisoners” is “honorable,” right-wing extremist Nerling happily tweeted. But then he asks: “Why isn’t Marianne Wilfert mentioned?” The 68-year-old Shoah denier is in prison for hate speech and insults. Nerling himself, who calls himself a “people’s teacher”, also has a criminal record for incitement to hatred after he relativized the organized mass murder of millions of Jews during the Nazi era in front of schoolchildren in February 2019 at the concentration camp memorial. With his own Twitter call, Nerling tries to use the Munich rally for his own purposes.
Knobloch: Defensive rule of law
The aim and purpose of a democratic right of assembly is not to give a free hand to right-wing extremists and conspiracy ideologues who abuse the freedoms of this democracy, says Charlotte Knobloch, an honorary citizen of Munich. The rule of law must defend itself against its enemies. Knobloch says: “I trust that the municipal authorities will do everything necessary to ensure that this demonstration does not take place.”
That could very well happen. The Munich police are currently preparing a risk forecast that the district administration department could base a ban on or a relocation of the demonstration, which has been registered for 800 participants. “A picture of the situation is currently being collected, involving all relevant bodies,” said the police headquarters on Thursday. According to the Bavarian assembly law an assembly can be restricted or forbidden if it is to take place on a day or place “which has a meaning reminiscent of the National Socialist regime of violence and despotism with significant symbolic power” and if there is a risk that the dignity of the victims will be trampled on or the Nazi reign of terror is played down.
Melchior Ibing also praises post-fascists
The largest Munich group from the pandemic denial scene “Munich Stands Up”, which is currently repeatedly stirring up the mood against the hate speech paragraph, expressly supports Haintz’s concerns. For his rally, she wants to skip her own Wednesday parade. It’s about “political persecution,” claims Melchior Ibing, the group’s spokesman, in a video – about the fact that “it’s easier to make people disappear.” Ibing, who wants to take part himself, is meanwhile beating the drum for the Italian post-fascists: “A country is blossoming with new joy,” Ibing writes on Telegram. “When a country develops in this way, with a government that is defamed as fascist, you could get the crazy idea that fascists are philanthropists.”