After an hour it was all over. Ulm lawyer Markus Haintz prematurely ended the rally he had initiated for imprisoned pandemic deniers and conspiracy ideologues (Haintz: “political prisoners”) on Wednesday evening. Haintz said he had just spoken to a “gentleman of Jewish descent,” in front of 350 supporters, some of whom applauded, some of whom were obviously dismayed, and around 250 counter-demonstrators who were just as stunned. His interlocutor told him that the meeting “doesn’t feel right for him today”. He, Haintz, will therefore end the demo.
The rally started late. According to Haintz, he had previously excluded a right-wing extremist from the meeting. In addition, senior public prosecutor Andreas Franck, the anti-Semitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, was made aware of a poster that could incite hate speech. Target of the photo collage: Jews. At the beginning of the meeting, Haintz called for participants with forbidden symbols or flags to be reported to him and the police. They could be state-paid provocateurs, he claimed.
The organizers should have known in advance that the conspiracy-ideologically intoned rally “didn’t feel right” for Munich’s Jews.
About 250 people gathered for a counter-demonstration on the square.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
The demonstration march initiated by Haintz was dedicated, among other things, to the Munich propagandist of the anti-Semitic conspiracy cult “QAnon” Oliver Janich, who was arrested in the Philippines and publicly called for the killing of German politicians and a Jewish billionaire. A convicted inciter to hatred had also announced that he would use the demo as a solidarity rally for an imprisoned Shoah denier, but then didn’t come to Munich.
At the commemoration in the Old Town Hall for the victims of the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, Charlotte Knobloch, the President of the Jewish Community, addressed the nearby demonstration by the “lateral thinkers” scene: “The political forces who want to unleash the hatred of our history again , will plunge this country into the abyss again if we let them. Everything my father hoped for and which became reality after 1949 – they want to destroy.” Parties like the AfD and groups like those that are moving through downtown Munich at the same time are a threat to democracy. She thanked everyone “who are against hate on the streets and raise their voices”.
The Bavarian State Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and Against Anti-Semitism, Ludwig Spaenle, also sharply criticized the planned rally. “The lateral thinker scene and many of its sympathizers” should know: “Anyone who refers to November 9 as a fateful day in Germany and calls for a rally in Munich on that date to demonstrate in favor of supposedly ‘political prisoners’ is following an unfortunate tradition , which failed bloodily in Munich 99 years ago.”
Spaenle was referring to the Hitler Putsch, which was also defeated on November 9 at the Feldherrnhalle. Not far away – on the square in front of the opera – the parade of the conspiracy ideology scene began on Wednesday evening. In recent years, neo-Nazis in Munich have repeatedly tried to march to the Feldherrnhalle on November 9th. “Civil society and the authorities are called upon,” said Spaenle, to prevent misuse of this date.
In a statement published on Tuesday, the organizer of the rally, Markus Haintz, denied “that he wanted to provoke victims of the Nazi dictatorship through the demonstration”. The originally chosen location right next to the official commemoration, the date: all more or less coincidental, claimed the lawyer from the lateral thinker scene – although his demo calls with the hashtag #muc911 were aimed at the “German day of fate” from the start.
After Haintz’s decision, there was a lot of excitement in the scene channels on Telegram and Twitter. “When will you understand that Mr. Haintz only puts on his own show…” wrote a supporter of the “Munich Stands Up” group. Others suspected that the organizer had planned to end the demo early and had no intention of moving to the Munich courts. Even the man with whom Haintz spoke before the rally was called off doubts that this conversation was the reason the demo was called off. He considers Haintz’ statements to be a pretext.