Several hundred former members of the SS Polizei Panzer Grenadier Division and their families ended a two-day “reunion” in the remote Bavarian town of Mark Theidenfeld yesterday amid charges that they were propagating Nazi ideas and traditions.
The Organization of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime and many other groups organized a protest that brought some 800 demonstrators to Mark Theidenfeld on Saturday to denounce the reunion as an attempt to revive and legitimize the spirit of Nazi Germany. But the local townsfolk apparently were quite willing to have the ex-SS men in their midst. The reunion has been a tradition in the town for the past 30 years.
The reunion drew another sharp protest from the Mayor of the Greek town of Distomon, Giorgos Sfountouris, who recalled that members of the SS Polizei Panzers massacred 218 Greek residents on June 10, 1944 when Nazi armies were occupying Greece.
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