Since an interview with a Nazi war criminal last year, NDR reporter Julian Feldmann, who regularly works for the magazines "Zapp" and "Panorama", faces right-wing attacks. This Saturday, the NPD in Hannover wants to take journalists to the streets - for their online call, they chose a picture of Feldmann.
In the "Panorama" interview, the now deceased Karl M. had relativized the Holocaust and mocked the victims of a massacre in France. Karl M. had been there in 1944 when soldiers of his SS unit had shot and killed 86 innocent civilians in the northern French town of Ascq in a retaliation.
Right sympathizers accuse Feldmann not to have identified himself as a journalist. A court forbade them to continue spreading this lie. Karl M. was in the right-wing extremist scene a sought-after "eyewitness" and is still revered as a "hero".
"Your memory deserves the truth"
In the run-up to the planned NPD demo in Hanover, relatives of victims of the massacre expressed their solidarity with the NDR journalist. "I would like to pledge my support to Julian Feldmann, to him and to all the journalists who have exposed the suffering of the innocent victims of the Ascq massacre and who have also made public the cruel views of Karl M.," wrote Marguerite-Marie Béghin. Her father was one of the victims of the Ascq massacre.
"To deny or falsify the truth has always been a means of promoting ideologies, of reigning with unspeakable cruelty and of justifying the worst deeds," wrote Jacqueline Ruckebusch-Béghin. Her father had been shot by the SS in 1944. "He [ Karl M. ] spoke freely, living and speaking in a freedom that was not granted to the victims of the Ascq massacre, and their memory deserves the truth."
Jacqueline Duhem and Sylvain Calonne, representing the Historic Society of Villeneuve d'Ascq, said: "The Villeneuve d'Ascq Historical Society assures NDR journalists, and Julian Feldmann in particular, their full support and made their work as journalists responsible, when they interviewed Karl M, in his apartment, about his role in the Ascq massacre. "
Are the NPD supporters allowed to demonstrate or not?
Whether it actually comes to the right march is unclear: The police department Hannover filed on Friday afternoon complaint against the decision of the Administrative Court in favor of a NPD demo. The Higher Administrative Court in Lüneburg now has to check whether the NPD is allowed to march and whether the administrative court has rightly overturned the ban on the demonstration.
The court ruled that a total ban on the event directed against critical journalists was not proportionate. The demonstration does not threaten the freedom of the press directly, but rather intimidating tendencies. The police could face this with restrictions on the demo.