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Nazis are planning rallies in several German towns on 1 May 2009, to compete with the usual revolutionary demonstrations. Indymedia linksunten will help the anti-fascist resistance in Hanover, Mainz und Ulm by providing live news services (tickers) in German and English.

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Ulm: Ticker | RSS | Mobil

Legal Team: 06221-181200

This text is about 1 May in Hannover. There is a newer feature in German about 1 May in Hannover. Texts in German covering 1 May in Mainz and 1 May in Ulm are also available on Indy linksunten.

1 May 09. Hanover – It’s been known since September 2008 that neonazis from the spectrum of so-called “free comradeships” are mobilising for a central march in the north German city Hannover. Up to 1,500 neonazis from all over Germany and neighbouring countries are expected. Anti-fascist mobilisation and planning has been going on at full capacity for months. According to a police order of 18 March 09 the gathering of the neonazis is banned at this point in time. However, everything indicates that the ban won’t hold up.

It emerged at the end of last year that the neonazis are planning marches in both Hanover and in Ulm, southern Germany, on 1 May. As in previous years, the neo-Nazi party NPD and like-minded groups are concentrating their mobilisation on the southern gathering, while the violence-prone “free comradeships” and the “AN” spectrum are concentrating on the north. It has emerged in recent months and weeks that other, though smaller, marches have been registered with the authorities in Neubrandenburg, Berlin, Dresden, Mainz and Weiden.  Within the neo-Nazi scene these other demo registrations caused bad blood and dispute, because especially in the action-oriented spectrum of the scene there is the hope to emulate a central large mobilisation on 1 May 08 in Hamburg – Barmbeck.  Despite successful anti-fascist interventions that day, which forced police to reroute the neonazis’ march through a hobby gardening estate to a nearby railway station and to declare it ended there, within the neo-fascist scene the March is rated a success. They ignore the fact that nearly all the buses used by the Nazis were destroyed and more than 10, 000 people protested against the March by various means. The adoption by parts of the neo-fascist scene of action forms like the “Black Block” and other actions usually regarded as “typically leftwing” are part of a change of strategy. Propagated especially by the NPD, the concept of demonstrating “legalistic closeness to citizens” is being displaced by a focus on action-oriented demonstration behaviour. Violent outrages and attacks by neonazis are not new, yet the events on 1 May in Hamburg seem to have developed a certain dynamism of its own.



The Hanover march has been filed by Dennis Bührig, from nearby Celle, who has a criminal record of several counts. Bührig has been active for years in the spectrum of violence-prone so-called “free comradeships” and is regarded as the head of comradeship “Celle 73”. He ran last year for the NPD in the Lower Saxony state election and appears as organiser, speaker and marshal at various marches. Bührig is involved in the network “Nationaler Sozialisten Niedersachsen“ (NaSo), an umbrella grouping of the comradeship scene in Lower Saxony and the “Stammtisch Nord“. “Stammtisch Nord“ is a coordination meeting of the so-called “free comradeship scene” in which one participant is Inge Nottelmann, who registered the march on 1 May 08. Nottelmann, who together with her friend Tobias Thiessen is active in the Hamburg “Aktionsbüro Nord“, is regarded as the driving force behind the smallest group,  “Arbeitskreis Mädelschar“ (girls working group), whose “theoretical pamphlet” is being used on the mobilisation page for Hanover.



In the “theoretical” part of the neo-fascist mobilisation to Hanover the attempt is made to image the 1st of May, the day of the left, emancipatory workers’ movement, into a context of national and ultimately nation socialist movements. Thus the text culminates in the headline “1 May – day off work since 1933“ and depicts the importance of the “worker” to the “body of the nation” propagated by Hitler and Goebbels. With the motto “end impoverishment,  foreign domination and opinion dictatorship – national socialism now”  the neonazis pick up classical lines of argument of a “national revolutionary” ideology in which parts of the so-called “free comradeship scene” and the “AN“ spectrum see themselves. In the context of “anti-capitalism from the right” on the argumentation basis of anti-Semitic stereotypes the attempt is made to address and explain social themes. The “revolutionary” alternative proclaimed by the Nazis is “taming capitalism” in a framework of a racist national community (Volksgemeinschaft). This is no “revolutionary”, much less an emancipatory ideology. The same line of argument was used by historical national socialism as the basis of the Shoa, the persecution and murder of millions of political opponents, homosexuals and others proclaimed to be enemies.



Shortly after plans for the central march in Hanover became known, groups in various political spectrums began mobilising for counter-protests. Many of the groups participating from the outset declared their intention to stop the march from happening and to blockade the route. This has resulted in the Blockade Alliance, in which trade unions, youth groups and representatives of the radical left are cooperating. But some functionaries managed to split the alliance, arguing that actively blocking the Nazi route is too offensive. This has created various alliances for 1 May in Hanover, whose aims vary from active prevention of the march to family outings with sausage grilling.  Already in autumn of 2008 groups of the radical left met to exchange views on shared positions and suitable forms of action. The meetings made clear that the purpose cannot be only to prevent the march, but also to present understandable radical leftwing contents to the public. This includes criticism of parts of the bourgeois public and their political positions.



The Nazis will begin their assembly at the central bus station close to the central railway station. The blockade alliance of the DGB trade union federation, youth groups and radical Left have registered events all around the Nazi gathering place to serve as starting points for blockades of the Nazi route. To enable as many people as possible to take part in the blockades, groups are called on not to act militantly near the blockades. Anti-fascists are also calling for many decentralised actions. A spokeswoman declared these were not meant to be contrary action forms but to contribute to a “coordinated multiplicity” of the protest. Information, sleeping places and other dates are posted on the mobilisation page of the alliance.

Antifascist website mobilising for 1 May in Hannover