German hoteliers have no reservations about keeping out Germany’s main far-right party.
Hotelier Johannes Lohmeyer of Offenbach forced the extremist National Democratic Party of Germany to cancel its reservations for two rooms at his Holiday Inn in the former East German state of Lower Saxony.
Lohmeyer, a prominent member of the center-right Free Democratic Party, in a public letter to party officials said that if they did not cancel, he would donate all their fees to the Dresden synagogue.
The letter told national chairman Holger Apfel and colleague Alexander Delle to “consider it as a small contribution to reparations for the damages that your like-minded fellows of the past inflicted on the synagogue, and more importantly on their former congregants.”
Meanwhile in the former West Germany, the National Democrats canceled their annual conference scheduled for next weekend because the venue refused to host them.
According to reports in the German media, the party went to court to try to hold the Weser Ems Hall in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, to its contract, but administrative and appeals courts agreed that the hotel could refuse access because only public institutions are required to make space available to political parties. The Weser Ems Hall is a municipal building but is leased to a private tenant.
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