Protests are mounting against the annual reunion meeting of former members of the Waffen SS “Totenkopf” (Death’s Head) Division, planned for March 30 in the town of Oberaula, State of Hesse.
But while various organizations and trade unions are urging the State Minister of Interior to ban the rally on constitutional grounds, the community of 3,500 seems less disturbed by the prospect of SS veterans in their midst than they are fearful of possible demonstrations by anti-Nazi groups.
The local authorities, members of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), have rented a public hall to the ex-Nazis. Hotel and restaurant owners are looking forward to the influx of 500-add SS veterans and their families.
They are concerned, however, that their town’s image as a tourist resort will be tarnished by protestors. They recall in particular the thousands of people who protested against the meeting of a different group of Waffen SS veterans in the town of Bad Hersfeld last summer.
CAN’T KEEP ANYONE FROM COMING
Dieter Pfalzgraf, chairman of the Oberaula Community Council, told reporters. “There are many who think that they should protest here and make a circus like in Bad Hersfeld. We are not going to introduce controls on who comes to this place. Fortunately, 100,000 people come here each year and none of them ever resorted to violence. We have no means to keep anyone from coming.”
According to “The Volunteer,” a magazine published by HIAG, the umbrella organization of former Waffen SS members, the “Waffen SS comrades met in Oberaula in 1982 and 1983 and were very well received by the local population.
This was borne out by the reply of a 54 year-old resident when a reporter reminded him that the “Totenkopf” Division regularly served in concentration camps during the Nazi era and was assigned to “special missions” against the Jewish population in Eastern Europe. “This does not disturb me particularly. I do not see any problem in their coming here,” the man said.
The tolerant attitude toward the SS veterans may stem in part from Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s recent description of HIAG as nothing more than a social club for mutual assistance. The members of the “Totenkopf “Division have registered this year as a society of people who want to spend their vacation together in Oberaula. That may have been done to ward off protest demonstrations such as occurred in Bad Hersfeld.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
