Flashmobbing Nazis

Since many years German nazis have rallied on August 17, the day when Rudolf Hess died in the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Mostly the rallies have taken place in Wunsiedel, Bavaria, where he were born. Hess was the deputy nazi party leader until 1940, when he went on a spectacular “peace missio” to the UK, and was apprehanded and interned for the rest of the war. He received a life prison sentence in Nuremberg, and was the last of the Nuremberg prisoners when he died.

The Wunsiedel rallies have a history of being declared illegal. In the 1990s, the rally was for e number of years held in different places in Denmark and Sweden. However, in 2001-2004 legal rallies were held in Wunsiedel, and when a new illegalisation was declared in 2005, the nazi movement was again homeless. This time, the rallies were declared illegal in the whole Federal republic, and with the Danish and Swedish movements to week to host them any more, they became homeless.

Until this year. Through proclamations on several home pages, the nazis presented a new alternative: the time ans the place of the demonstration would be given to anyone who supplied their mobile phone numbers to the web site provider. Just before the demonstration they would get text message to their phone with the time and gathering place. It goes without saying that antifascists and police who had also given in their numbers would get the same information, but would, the nazis hoped, be outnumbered on the spot.

A grand plan, no doubt. However, as reports come in from all over Germany in the evening, the result was as meager as ever. Very few grops had gathered at all, and only with ever fewer participants.