It is rare for local politicians to go down in the iconic memory of a country. Karl-Willi Beck, mayor of Wunsiedel from 2002 to 2020, succeeded, albeit against his will. In August 2004 he joined other rebellious people who didn’t want to stand by and watch as thousands of neo-Nazis marched through a small town in Upper Franconia for the third year in a row. Beck had witnessed them all, the marches through Wunsiedel, where Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess was buried in 1987. In 2004 he no longer wanted to. The CSU mayor joined those who spontaneously blocked the way of the marchers with a sit-in.
The day after, the mayor was on the front page of the taz and had to be asked by party friends whether everything was still okay with him: He, the head of town hall from the northern Bavarian province, was getting a eulogy from a capital newspaper that was not suspicious of notorious CSU expressions of sympathy? Beck was asked whether he had really thought about it, taking to the streets with more left-leaning demonstrators? Beck replied: No, he didn’t really think about it – “I just had to do it”. Knowing full well that it was illegal.
The man Beck, part-time farmer, 1.99 meters tall, sat down on the street – and thus made a significant contribution to change in the city. In the case of predecessors, it was still said: We only upgrade them when we demonstrate. Let’s get out of town when they come, that annoys them the most. He understands the argument, Beck replied. But found that “looking the other way” was not an attitude. If we left it at that, Wunsiedel would always remain the “Nazi town in Upper Franconia”. Beck later reported to the German Bundestag how it is in a small town when you are literally overrun by Nazis from half of Europe. How helpless you feel, how pathetic.
Beck was hit hard for his attitude. Today, hardly anyone denies that he was successful in doing so. Wunsiedel is no longer the nationwide known “Nazi town”.
But the work in the town hall of Wunsiedel was not easy even without such large marches. Beck was repeatedly attacked for his office, also legally. But could claim to be concerned about the well-being of a city that was particularly clammy even by Upper Franconian standards. A city that also has something special to shoulder with the Luisenburg Festival.
His successor Nicolas Lahovnik calls Karl-Willi Beck a “courageous visionary and doer, whose traces and work will be visible for a long time to come”. Traces, such as the repair of the rock labyrinth, the expansion of the festival’s operations building and the “Wunsiedler Weg der Energie” developed by Beck, which relies on decentralized energy supply.
Above all, however, Beck’s fight against right-wing extremism will remain in the memory. For this he received the Theodor Heuss Medal in 2008 and the Bavarian Constitutional Medal in gold in 2011. Beck died on Sunday at the age of 68 after a long illness.