Thousands Rally Against Neo-Nazis Near German War Cemetery

Around 6,500 people demonstrated Saturday near Halbe, a town in eastern Germany, to protest a planned neo-Nazi gathering at a cemetery holding roughly 24,000 World War II dead. A court had banned the neo-Nazi rally the previous day.

Redirected by the court order, several hundred neo-Nazis instead assembled at a cemetery in Seelow, about 100 kilometers away, where 649 German soldiers from a late-war battle are interred. A comparable number of left-wing counter-protesters also gathered there; no violence was reported. About 1,700 officers were deployed across both sites.

Green Party parliamentarian Claudia Roth, present at the Halbe rally, accused the neo-Nazis of trying to dishonor the memory of those buried there.

The demonstrations fell on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, the day Germans traditionally observe to honor their war dead.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in November 2006, in its own words.