As of: February 15, 2024, 9:38 a.m
By: Peter Reinbold
Comments
Press
Split
Protest against right-wing extremism: In September 2018, a demo against an AfD event took place in Murnau.
© Lory/Archive
Now Murnau is also mobilizing against right-wing extremism.
The Werdenfelser Alliance has organized a demonstration next Sunday under the motto “No more is now.
“Democracy needs no alternative”.
Around 1,000 participants are expected.
Murnau
– Demonstrations against the right are no longer limited to large cities.
Recently, an increasing number of committed citizens in smaller towns and communities have joined the protest.
Also in the Oberland.
In cities like Weilheim and Penzberg in the neighboring Weilheim-Schongau district, well over 1,000 people each took to the streets.
Now the wave of demos is also reaching Murnau.
The Werdenfels Alliance Against Right-Wing Extremism invites you to a rally on Ödön-von-Horváth-Platz on Sunday, February 18th at 2 p.m.
“We are expecting 500 to 1,000 participants,” says Thomas Wagner, one of the speakers for the Werdenfels Alliance alongside Wolf Gebler and also the chairman of the meeting.
Together with the district office, the market's public order office and the police, Wagner sat at the table at the so-called cooperation discussion.
According to police chief Joachim Loy, the meeting went smoothly.
He assumes “everything will remain peaceful.”
That's why it is currently planned that the event will only be accompanied by officials from the Murnau Inspectorate.
However, if problems arise, according to Loy, “additional emergency services can be mobilized quickly.”
The trigger for the nationwide protests was a report by the media company Correctiv about a secret meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam in November.
Among other things, mass expulsions of people with a migration background were discussed there.
AfD politicians and CDU members also took part.
According to Wagner, the remigration plans would have devastating economic consequences in addition to human suffering.
“These people are then missing from their workplace.
Nursing, an area where there is already a shortage of workers, would collapse.” Other professional areas would also be massively affected, says Wagner.
“Germany would become impoverished and deindustrialized.” He is firmly convinced that a signal must now be sent against any kind of right-wing extremism.
The alliance has existed since 2005
The Werdenfelser Alliance has been doing this since it was founded in 2005. It sees itself as an association of citizens, democratic parties - including Murnau municipal councils, the ÖDP, Alliance 90/The Reasons, the SPD -, church organizations, associations and clubs from Werdenfelser Land, who are committed to cultural diversity, tolerance and a free society.
Wagner explicitly invited those political forces that belong to the Murnau local council.
“I hope everyone comes,” he says.
Veronika Jones-Gilch didn't have to be asked twice.
“I would like all democratic parties to be there,” says the Green Party spokeswoman.
Welf Probst, local councilor for the Free Voters, kept a low profile on Wednesday afternoon.
“I don’t know yet whether I will take part,” he explains when asked by Tagblatt.
Probst, who describes himself as a “conservative,” first wants to find out who is organizing the demo.
What he knows: You have to “fight the causes of right-wing extremism”, not just a group like the AfD.
The representatives of the Free Voters seem to be fundamentally at odds with the current protest against right-wing extremism.
At the rally in Weilheim, for example, the party's leading local forces were conspicuous by their absence.
Hubert Aiwanger, Bavaria's Free Voters leader and Deputy Prime Minister of Bavaria, claimed after a large demonstration in Munich on the X platform, formerly Twitter, that "the anti-right demonstrations are often infiltrated by left-wing extremists."
Murnau's mayor Rolf Beuting (ÖDP/Citizens' Forum) has often taken a clear position against the right in the past.
And does it again in a statement.
“It is very important to me to send a clear signal against right-wing extremism.
I see it as my task to actively work for our democracy, for tolerance and diversity, for our Murnau.
I am pleased that such a broad coalition has called for this demonstration.”
Wagner points out that the Murnau demonstration on the forecourt of the culture and conference center will not be taken over by party politics.
According to Wagner, in addition to Rolf Beuting in his role as Murnau's mayor, only members of so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are scheduled to speak.
Wagner also announces a surprise guest.
He deliberately keeps quiet about who it is.
“If I said the name, it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”
Also interesting:
The demonstrators come with AfD celebrities