Several demonstrations and rallies have been registered for the second anniversary of the Würzburg knife attack this Sunday. The mayor of Würzburg, Christian Schuchardt (CDU), made it clear in a written statement on Friday that the city and its citizens “do not want June 25, 2021 to be taken from outside”: “We do not need demagogues and campaigners who arrive on the day of remembrance and us explain what happened that day and what political conclusions can now be drawn from it. You are expressly not welcome.”
The AfD in Lower Franconia calls for a “rally in memory of the knife murders” on Sunday. According to the authorities, the party expects around 300 participants. She also announced the appearance of one of her prominent representatives from the far right spectrum: the Thuringian AfD parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke. The participants want to move in a demonstration from the crime scene at Barbarossaplatz to the center of the old town at the Unteren Markt. Therefore, a counter-rally of the alliance “Würzburg is colorful” takes place there. The Würzburg district association of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) is calling for the demo on behalf of the alliance.
It is feared that the AfD and Höcke wanted to exploit “the terrible act of violence” from two years ago at Barbarossaplatz “for their racist agitation,” the alliance said: “We will not let that go unchallenged! Björn Höcke and the Thuringian AfD are proven right-wing extremist and anti-democratic.”
Behind “Würzburg is colorful” is a broad civil society alliance of parties, trade unions, churches and numerous other organizations. Also on Sunday will be the city’s official wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the victims of the crime. Later, the Catholic and Protestant Churches invite you to a commemoration ceremony in the Marienkapelle on the lower market – i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the AfD rally and counter-demo. The service begins with a five-minute commemoration, during which the bells of the Marienkapelle ring, said the Diocese of Würzburg together with the Protestant deanery. “The Marienkapelle is open to everyone who wants to commemorate the victims in silence and dignity,” the statement said.
In the knife attack on June 25, 2021, three women were killed and numerous other people injured on Barbarossaplatz in Würzburg in the middle of the city center. The accused, who has been living in Würzburg since 2019, came to the country from Somalia as an asylum seeker in 2015 and is a refugee under subsidiary protection. The Würzburg district court committed the man to a psychiatric clinic for an indefinite period of time in a so-called security procedure at the end of July last year. The court saw it as proven that the man, who was paranoid and schizophrenic according to the experts, was not guilty at the time of the crime.