Home > Neo-Nazis gather for Hess remembrance march
Some 3,800 neo-Nazis gathered today for a march in memory of Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, in the Bavarian town where he is buried, police said.
The march in Wunsiedel was met by several hundred counter-demonstrators, who at one point halted it by staging a sit-down blockade. Although no clashes were reported, police said they detained 110 people - 74 of them neo-Nazis.
Marchers were detained for displaying outlawed Nazi symbols and for carrying weapons or pepper spray, police spokeswoman Beate Weiss said.
Some 1,000 officers were deployed to prevent trouble at the march.
Hess hanged himself at age 93 in Spandau Prison in then-West Berlin on August 17, 1987 after nearly 41 years as a prisoner.
Neo-Nazis regularly troop to Wunsiedel to mark the day he died. Local authorities have tried to ban the march, but in recent years a state court has ruled that it can go ahead.
Wunsiedel’s mayor, Karl-Willi Beck, was among the protesters who demonstrated against the neo-Nazis today.
“It is our duty to make our voice heard,” he said.