Monument to the Waffen SS
The monument for the Waffen-SS was a private memorial for the fallen soldiers of the 1st Panzer Corps of the Waffen-SS. It was built in Marienfels in 1971 and destroyed by strangers in 2004. Since 2003, the memorial has been the target of several right-wing extremist rallies and marches. The destroyed monument was stored and rebuilt on the private property of the neo-Nazi Thorsten Heise in Fretterode .
The monument in Marienfels
In 1939/40 the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) was stationed in Marienfels for some time. In 1971 the community therefore leased a piece of land to the "Comradeship Association of Soldiers of the 1st and 12th Panzer Divisions of the former Waffen-SS" in the Marienfels cemetery, on which they soon erected a war memorial . The mayor signed a 30-year lease with the Comradeship Association with a lease amounting to 450 DM. The memorial was about six meters long, 60 cm wide and three meters high with an iron cross and the inscription 1939 - 1945. Our dead Comrades from the 1st Panzer Corps. Loyalty for loyalty . The base showed the inscription The dead of wars admonish the world to peace and the badges of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" . The memorial was inaugurated on Pentecost Sunday 1971. Afterwards, the Comradeship Association and its family members met every year on Memorial Day . Over the years, more and more young neo-Nazis have joined them. At the foot of the stone was the urn of the former chairman of the comradeship association Walter Ewert.
In 1977 and 1989 demonstrations took place against these commemorations. At the second demonstration there were clashes between the rally participants and anti-fascists . After initially stricter conditions, the Marienfels municipal council unanimously rejected an extension when the lease expired in 2001. The mayor declared that he wanted to tolerate the 30-year-old monument "out of respect for the old" for an indefinite period. The comradeship association was supposed to deposit a 3000 euro security deposit for a possible removal of the monument , but did not pay for two years. Thereupon a deadline of August 1, 2003 was again set to accept this agreement or to remove the memorial stone by September 1. In mid-April 2004, the community and the comradeship association agreed that the memorial stone would be removed by the end of 2005.
On the night of April 29th to April 30th, 2004, unknown persons destroyed the memorial. The stone construction was almost completely broken and an already planned reconstruction in another municipality in southern Germany was prevented for a long time. The date was probably chosen deliberately with a view to the suicide of Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun on the same day and the hoisting of the Soviet flag on the Berlin Reichstag building .
The neo-Nazi demonstrations
Soon after the community announced the dismantling plans, the SS Comradeship Association, together with the NPD and Free Comradeships, organized a demonstration for the preservation of the monument on November 22, 2003 with 300 to 400 participants. The speaker line-up with former Nazi and Ritterkreuzträger Otto Riehs and neo-Nazi Thomas "Steiner" Wulff was highly for such a monument. Around 600 people demonstrated against the right-wing extremists, including many from the village and the surrounding area. The counter rally was supported, among others, by the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Kurt Beck .
On May 8, 2004, around 200 right-wing extremists gathered again to complain about the loss of the memorial and to demand that the memorial stone be rebuilt. In addition to the regional comradeships Westerwald, MSC 28 (Limburg) and the Black Division Rheinhessen, numerous neo-Nazis came from neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia, who also provided the speakers with Claus Cremer , Ralph Tegethoff and the Bonn NPD district chairman Robert Klug. The mobilization was promoted by the Action Office North Germany under Christian Worch .
For the third time within a year, around 300 people demonstrated for the reconstruction on November 20, 2004 in nearby Nastätten in the Taunus. These were mostly local citizens from the area. The counter-demonstration had a maximum of 50 participants. In addition, 50-100 anti-fascists had arrived, who managed to break through a roadblock in Rheingaustrasse. However, they were arrested by the police shortly afterwards. Previously, they had gathered at the Nastätter Bürgerhaus and were surrounded by the police. How it came to the near-clash of the parties is not clear. Another 150 nationalists were in Marienfels on May 28, 2005, this time Siegfried "SS-Siggi" Borchardt , and again Ralph Tegethoff, managing director of the extreme right-wing Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) and former activist of the stock front Nationale Socialisten ( ANS) Constant Kusters and Sven Skoda from the Kameradschaft Düsseldorf. In addition, a greeting from the NPD party chairman Udo Voigt was read out.
Implementation according to Fretterode
At the beginning of February 2006, numerous national media, including the MDR and the Berliner Morgenpost , reported plans according to which former members of the Waffen SS wanted to rebuild the Marienfels memorial on the private property of Thuringian NPD board member Thorsten Heise in Fretterode. According to information from journalist Andrea Röpke in the Internet journal Blick nach Rechts , there was already an agreement dated October 9, 2005 between Thorsten Heise and the board of the Kameradschaftsverband, in which formalities such as the transport from Altendiez on the Lahn to Fretterode were regulated. Accordingly, Heise undertakes not to use the monument for party political purposes, but only for commemorations in the interests of the veterans.
In an initial statement, the Thuringian state government condemned the plans and encouraged the local authorities to “exhaust all legal remedies against such a monument”. Government spokesman Uwe Spindeldreier said: "In the target so-called memorial on the grounds of the Thuringia NPD board member is not about memories but about political exploitation by extremists." The county chairman of the Left Party , the CDU -Kreisvorsitzende and the District Administrator Werner Henning (CDU) turned against these plans. Nevertheless, the monument was rebuilt in June 2006. At the beginning of 2013, the Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen - Landesgruppe Nordrhein-Westfalen e. V. recommended visiting this memorial, which, according to the Landsmannschaft, is dedicated, among other things, to the victims of “escape and displacement”. The phone number given under which one should register is that of Heises "W + B Medien" - Versand .