Walter Herrmann (activist)

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Walter Herrmann at the "Cologne Wailing Wall", 2013

Walter Herrmann (born January 26, 1939 in Würzburg ; † June 26, 2016 in Wesseling ) was a Cologne activist . He became known as the initiator and representative of the so-called Cologne Wailing Wall , a controversial mobile installation in downtown Cologne.

Life

According to his own account, Herrmann grew up on a farm. After studying to be a teacher in Würzburg, Herrmann taught at a secondary school for five years . Attracted by the student movement , he moved to Cologne in the 1960s to study psychology .

In Cologne, he was initially active in the SDS and was involved in the home campaign and in setting up shared apartments for young people who came to Trebegänger . Later described by his comrades-in-arms as “opinionated” and endowed with “unlikely consistency”, he mostly fell out with the political groups and then left them; he described himself as someone who had to be for political action, free of organizations and hierarchies into which he could not fit.

In January 2016 Herrmann became aware of cancer . He died on June 26, 2016 in the hospital in Wesseling. The funeral on July 12, 2016 was celebrated by Pastor Franz Meurer in Cologne-Vingst , who accompanied Herrmann in his last days.

"Wailing Wall for Peace and International Understanding"

In the 1980s, after an argument with his landlord, Herrmann lost his apartment by eviction . Thereupon he erected the first “Wailing Wall to the Housing Shortage” at the Bierbrunnen on Schildergasse, at the intersection of two busy pedestrian zones . The installation, in which labeled, painted and 19 × 28 centimeter cards made of cardboard were attached to stretched clotheslines , was cleared away several times by the police and the public order office . With the same concept, in which passers-by also hung up written cards, Herrmann and some of his fellow campaigners erected the “Wailing Wall for Peace” on the Domplatte , directly in front of the cathedral, on the occasion of the second Gulf War . There were disputes over several years with the cathedral chapter , the city administration and the police about the erection of the "wall". In addition to legal proceedings and evictions, the installation, which was guarded around the clock by Herrmann and his colleagues, also survived attacks by right-wing extremists . The peace-moving political message and the unusual form of protest also attracted media attention and prominent sympathy from all over the world. In 1998 Herrmann and the other participants in the Western Wall received the Aachen Peace Prize . At the end of 2015, Walter Herrmann made his last appearance with the installation in front of Cologne Cathedral.

Accusation of anti-Semitism

The Wailing Wall was criticized from 2005 because Herrmann, as its best-known representative, has since devoted himself to a presentation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that was repeatedly rated as distorting and one-sided. The waves of criticism hit particularly high when Hermann showed a caricature in January 2010 of a Jew wearing the colors of the US flag, using a knife and fork, to cut up and eat a Palestinian child lying on a plate. In this context, he was accused of anti-Semitism. Herrmann distanced himself from the image of the caricature and referred to its context, a dpa photo of anti-Israeli protests in India after the Operation Cast Lead , in which a demonstrator held up the drawing. The Wailing Wall took the photo from a newspaper report and showed it together with the accompanying explanatory caption as a historical document.

On April 10, 2015 the Cologne District Court found Herrmann guilty of violating the Youth Protection Act by showing 15 pictures of dead and seriously injured children on the Western Wall . He was given a suspended fine .

The sponsoring association of the self-administered Alte Feuerwache civic center , in which Herrmann stored the majority of his installations overnight, terminated his use of its rooms in October 2015, among other things because of insulting some of its members and an employee.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Neue Rheinische Zeitung Online, online , accessed on February 27, 2010.
  2. Wailing Wall at Cologne Cathedral activist Walter Herrmann (77) is dead! In: express.de. Express , June 26, 2016, accessed June 26, 2016 .
  3. a b Mahner with a penchant for egomania by Pascal Beucker in: taz nrw of April 12, 2007; Retrieved online on February 27, 2010.
  4. Roland Kaufhold : The operator of the Cologne "Wailing Wall" is doing badly , Jungle World , 4/16, January 28, 2016, accessed on April 2, 2016.
  5. ^ Cologne-Vingst: Moving funeral service for Western Wall activist Walter Hermann. Retrieved July 12, 2016 .
  6. The Cologne Wailing Wall ; Book review in Rathaus Ratlos 17/1999 online , accessed on March 1, 2010
  7. The "Cologne Wailing Wall" - anti-Semitism in the shadow of the cathedral; Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Thursday, February 4, 2010; Page 30; Aachener Nachrichten Online from February 24, 2010 ; Herrmann is allowed to show caricature - public prosecutor rejects complaint against the initiator of the Western Wall in: WELT ONLINE, April 14, 2010 , accessed on April 17, 2010; Gerd Buurmann - tapferimnirgendwo.wordpress.com: The wall has to go! ( Memento of December 21, 2010 on the Internet Archive ) , accessed December 21, 2010; Helmut Frangenberg: "Wailing Wall" removed from the cathedral , in: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger on February 23, 2010, online ( memento from February 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 27, 2010; Resolution against the Cologne Wailing Wall «Israel & Judaism . Hagalil.com. December 17, 2010. Accessed December 21, 2010 .; No misanthropy in Cologne - not even at the “Wailing Wall” «Israel & Judaism . Hagalil.com. December 16, 2010. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
  8. ^ "Mossad, Mossad !!!" The file "Cologne Wailing Wall", haGalil
  9. Henryk M. Broder : Die Welt: Der Kölner, who annoys with anti-Semitism in front of the cathedral, January 23, 2011, accessed on June 19, 2014
  10. Hagalil: An Old Anti-Semitic Stereotype December 19, 2010 Retrieved May 27, 2014
  11. REPORT / 002: The "Cologne Wailing Wall" in the absence of ideological stigmatization (SB) , Schattenblick, August 17, 2010
  12. Criminal? - That is the question in: Neue Rheinische Zeitung, online , accessed on January 28, 2014.
  13. Roland Kaufhold : Violation of the protection of minors , in taz - online, accessed on April 12, 2015
  14. Alte Feuerwache announces Wailing Wall activist Walter Herrmann , Kölner Stadtanzeiger from October 9, 2015