Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Parade in SS uniforms sparks outrage

Police are investigating whether marchers in a recent parade in Saxony-Anhalt broke the law by wearing Nazi-era SS and Wehrmacht uniforms. The incident has sparked outrage beyond the borders of the eastern German state.

Published: 19 June 2009 15:30 CEST
Parade in SS uniforms sparks outrage
Photo: DPA

The state-funded parade last weekend through the town of Thale had over 4,000 participants representing different periods of the state’s history. Over 200,000 people came to watch the parade. The uniformed marchers belonged to a club associated with a Dessau military history museum and wore authentic-looking Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht uniforms.

“From my perspective, it was an entirely knowing provocation,” state Justice Minister Angela Kolb told the news agency DPA on Friday.

Police from the state capital of Magdeburg are investigating the group to determine whether they violated Germany’s strict laws against the display of Nazi symbols.

The club’s members had apparently removed or covered up the forbidden swastikas and SS runes from the uniforms.

“We wanted to illustrate the end of the Second World War,” said Rainer Augustin, the head of the booster club.

Saxony-Anhalt’s Interior Minister Holger Hövelmann said wearing the uniforms was tasteless in light of the devastation and horror of World War II. Wulff Gallert, the head of the state’s Left party’s parliamentary delegation called the incident “a scandal.”

The Nazi-uniformed parade participants were followed by a group of marchers dressed as American soldiers, to represent the US Army’s liberation of the region at the end of the war.

The story was originally reported by the daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, which lambasted the affair in a commentary asking whether the state’s residents were really tolerant and open to the rest of the world.

“Saxony-Anhalt is so tolerant that military fans can even wear Wehrmacht and SS uniforms and march in the state parade,” the paper said. “Oh right, the SS runes where taped over. Well, then everything is just fine!”

The commentary noted that Saxony-Anhalt has the most right-wing violence per capita of all the German states and that treating the display of Nazi symbols as an everyday occurrence sent a bad message about the state.

The club’s president issued an apology.

“We regret that our contribution was misunderstand. We didn’t want to hurt or injure anyone,” Augustin wrote in a letter to Dessau’s mayor.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

GERMANY AND RUSSIA

Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

Germany and the Czech Republic on Friday blamed Russia for a series of recent cyberattacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of consequences over its "malicious behaviour in cyberspace".

Published: 4 May 2024 10:29 CEST
Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

The accusations come at a time of strained relations between Moscow and the West following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the European Union’s support for Kyiv.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said a newly concluded government investigation found that a cyberattack targeting members of the Social Democratic Party had been carried out by a group known as APT28.

APT28 “is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia”, Baerbock told reporters during a visit to Australia.

“In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”

APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused of dozens of cyberattacks in countries around the world. Russia denies being behind such actions.

The hacking attack on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party was made public last year. Hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to compromise e-mail accounts, according to Berlin.

Berlin on Friday summoned the acting charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy over the incident.

The Russian embassy in Germany said its envoy “categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident… as unsubstantiated and groundless”.

Arms, aerospace targeted: Berlin 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the cyber campaign was orchestrated by Russia’s military intelligence service GRU and began in 2022. It also targeted German companies in the armaments and aerospace sectors, she said.

Such cyberattacks are “a threat to our democracy, national security and our free societies”, she told a joint news conference in Prague with her Czech counterpart Vit Rakusan.

“We are calling on Russia again to stop these activities,” Faeser added.

Czech government officials said some of its state institutions had also been the target of cyberattacks blamed on APT28, again by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft Outlook in 2023.

Czech Interior Minister Rakusan said his country’s infrastructure had recently experienced “higher dozens” of such attacks.

“The Czech Republic is a target. In the long term, it has been perceived by the Russian Federation as an enemy state,” he told reporters.

EU, NATO condemnation

The German and Czech findings triggered strong condemnation from the European Union.

“The malicious cyber campaign shows Russia’s continuous pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, by targeting democratic institutions, government entities and critical infrastructure providers across the European Union and beyond,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU would “make use of the full spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behaviour in cyberspace”, he added.

State institutions, agencies and entities in other member states including in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden had been targeted by APT28 in the past, the statement added.

The latest accusations come a day after NATO expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “hybrid actions” including disinformation, sabotage and cyber interference.

The row also comes as millions of Europeans prepare to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections in June, and concerns about foreign meddling are running high.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told AFP that “pointing a finger publicly at a specific attacker is an important tool to protect national interests”.

One of the most high-profile incidents so far blamed on Fancy Bear was a cyberattack in 2015 that paralysed the computer network of the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. It forced the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

In 2020, the EU imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the APT28 group over the incident.

SHOW COMMENTS