While several hundred über-patriotic football hooligans assembled at pubs, on the streets, and on the buses of Birmingham on the weekend, in Dortmund, Germany, 700 neo-Nazis occupied a parking lot.
Sieg heil!
The German patriots had wanted to goosestep through the city but the German courts said —
— so the Master Race had to be content with hiding behind masses of police (Verletzte bei Protesten gegen Neonaziversammlung in Dortmund, AFP). As is usually the case, there was some argy-bargy between antifa and police, a few injuries, hundreds of arrests, and the neo-Nazis were able to go home safely to prepare for the next occasion they require a police escort. (And piss-all coverage in the English-language press.)
On May Day this year, ‘autonomous’ nationalists attacked a trade union rally in the city, while a German police officer was — gasp! — caught on video helping defend the rally by kicking a unionist in the head while he lay prostrate on the ground.
Bonus!
Antifa in Germany have produced a new (to me) video: Uno Di Noi: Ein Antifaschistisches Graffiti In Bochum. It documents the construction of a mural in Bochum, made in order to commemorate the murder by neo-Nazis of seven anti-fascist yoof:
- Jan Kučera (18, Prague, Czech Republic, January 18, 2008)
Fedor Filatov (27, Moscow, Russia, October 10, 2008)
Carlos Javier Palomino (16, Madrid, Spain, November 11, 2007)
Davide Cesare “Dax” (26, Milan, Italy, March 16, 2003)
Renato Biagetti (26, Rome, Italy, August 28, 2006)
Timur Kacharava (20, St. Petersburg, Russia, November 13, 2005)
Thomas Schulz (31, Dortmund, Germany, March 28, 2005)
It kicks arse.
It may also be usefully contrasted with the attitudes of some locals.
Speaking of which, this Saturday, September 12, boneheads from Australia and New Zealand will be gathering in Melbourne, as they have done for the last 15 years, to commemorate the death in 1993 of Ian Stuart Donaldson, a pioneer — along with similarly dead bonehead Nicky Crane — of the neo-Nazi muzak industry. The boneheads will be hoping that this year’s gathering will be more successful than their last, abortive attempt at organising a gig in Perth, WA, to celebrate the deaths of Australian and New Zealand soldiers in WWII (a failure apparently being blamed on former Skrewdriver member turned refrigerator repairman Murray Holmes, the B&H rep in WA). Some of the flavour of the gathering may be obtained through looking at the antics of racist fruitcakes in Frankston and fascist nutcases in Footscray, as well as the previous history of such events.
Two weeks later, fascists will be gathering in Sydney for the ‘Sydney Forum’, where the MC will be former NPD activist Welf Herfurth now, inter alia, an organiser with Volksfront Australia. Moaron that later.
