Czech neo-Nazis going to Rotava this weekend brought German neo-Nazis to last fall's protest there
| DSSS chair Tomáš Vandas making a speech in Rotava last October. Robin Siener (far right in baseball cap) is a German neo-Nazi, an NPD member, and a member of Freies Netz. Next to him, behind the banner that reads "česko-německého přátelství" (Czech-German Friendship), stands Katrin Köhler, a neo-Nazi from Saxony and NPD member. |
On Saturday, 29 October 2011, the
Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti -
DSSS) held an anti-Romani demonstration in Rotava (Sokolov district)
together with neo-Nazis from Germany. The DSSS has itself been
infiltrated by neo-Nazis, including its cells in the Karlovy Vary
region.
One section of Rotava, a
small town on the border between the Czech Republic and Germany, is
generally considered to have the most socially excluded locality in the
entire Karlovy Vary region. Support from local residents is the main
reason the DSSS is returning to Rotava this weekend. The website
Antifa.cz covers this topic and has published an extensive new article,
"Nazis in Rotava", which news server Romea.cz is excerpting below. The
full article can be read (in Czech only) at
http://www.antifa.cz/content/nackove-v-rotave .
There are roughly 13
localities on the territory of the Karlovy Vary region that can be
considered "socially excluded". In 2005 the Czech Labor and Social
Affairs Ministry commissioned the "Analysis of Socially Excluded Romani
Localities and Communities and the Absorption Capacity of Entities
Working in the Area" (Analýza sociálně vyloučených romských lokalit a
komunit a absorpční kapacity subjektů, působících v této oblasti). In
that analysis, Rotava was labeled as the most socially excluded locality
in the whole region. At the time, news server Romea.cz published the
following commentary, from which we now cite the following as having
been prescient:
"Municipalities often do not
know what to do to address the bad situation in which residents of
these localities find themselves. Most residents live in privately-owned
buildings which the town and villages have no influence over. Other
towns in the region with predominantly Romani neighborhoods include Aš,
Cheb, Kraslice and Sokolov, while small villages also have such
neighborhoods. However, the approach taken by the private owners of the
buildings is not uniform. For example, on Wolkerova street in Cheb, the
landlords have made almost no investment into repairing their
properties, while in Sokolov the buildings have gradually been repaired.
However, once such properties are renovated, a large part of their
original tenants have to leave them. The town that social workers
consider a ticking time bomb is Rotava. In recent years, dozens of
Romani people from all over the region have been moving there."
The irresponsibility of
local politicians, who are themselves to blame to a large extent for the
situation in Rotava (and not just thanks to unclear financial
machinations and their irresponsible handling of municipally-owned
apartments), instead of undergoing the necessary self-reflection, have
"fought back" by spouting declarations about "zero tolerance" and taking
the so-called "inadaptables" to task. It is just this sort of argument
that the neo-Nazi infiltrated DSSS loves to hear and the party announced
it would be protesting there on 29 October 2011.
At first it seemed the
Rotava demonstration would not differ from the classic attempts at
racist provocation which DSSS chair Vandas has traveled the country
making in recent years. However, the date of the demonstration was
interesting, as it was held on the day after 28 October, the anniversary
of the founding of Czechoslovakia. In past years this has been an
annual date on which fascist associations such as the Patriotic Front
(Vlastenecká fronta) have demonstrated in Prague and on which neo-Nazi
organizations such as the National Resistance (Národní odpor) branch in
Silesia have demonstrated in Ostrava.
When information started
turning up that both demonstrations would also be attended by neo-Nazis
from Germany, it was clear that representatives of the DSSS and the
Worker's Youth (Dělnická mládež - DM, the party's youth organization)
were preparing an activist weekend for German Nazis in the Czech
Republic. The location of Rotava, at the German border, made it easier
to mobilize Germans and was born out in the numbers that did attend,
which was high by Czech standards. Two busloads of German neo-Nazis,
primarily from the organization Freie Netz Süd and the NPD in Bavaria,
came to support the demonstration in Rotava. Several personal vehicles
with German neo-Nazis from Saxony arrived as well.
Some members of the Saxon
delegation had participated in previous demonstrations in Ostrava,
specifically, the "prominent" neo-Nazi Katrin Köhler, an NPD member who
is currently a town councilor in Chemnitz, and the Bavarian politician
and active neo-Nazi Robin Siener (NPD, Freies Netz Süd). Siener also
spoke at last year's 1 May demonstration in Brno. His speech insulted
Polish guest workers and included anti-Semitic and racist statements for
which he is currently being prosecuted. Here is an excerpt: "Look at
the big European cities, where women are being raped right in the middle
of the square..., where this human garbage can commit crime without the
local population intervening... When will the nation finally get its
rights? … We are sending our blood to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Lebanon, and
in return we just get human garbage that no one wants... I ask each of
you, how far will it go in our countries before we take up staffs and
and torches and run those who are oppressing us and sending us their
human garbage here out of the European fortress and send them back to
where they came from? We would do best to send them immediately back to
Israel or the USA with one-way tickets... We are divided by only two
things, the border and language, nothing else..." (See Romea.cz's
reporting on the 1 May demonstration at
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_23d97).
Representatives of Brno City
Hall and the police passively stood by during this speech, which was
criticized by one of the spokespeople for the BRNO Blocks
counter-protest, Jiří Koželouh: "At this moment the neo-Nazi action
should be dispersed as the law prescribes." Koželouh said police should
also have intervened when DSSS chair Vandas threatened the expert on
extremism whom city officials had invited to assist the police in their
monitoring. Vandas denounced the expert, telling him: "We know all
about you, ...it's over for you...."
Vandas is a nationalist
flip-flopper. In 2004, he spoke at a gathering of the Club of the Czech
Borderland (Klub českého pohraničí) where together with representatives
of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) he declaimed
against compensating the Sudeten Germans. A few years later he started
collaborating with German neo-Nazis who want the Sudetenland back - but
let's return to who marched in Rotava last year and who organized the
event itself.
In addition to the
above-mentioned German neo-Nazis, the October demonstration was attended
by the top leadership of the DSSS (Vandas, Štěpánek, Kotáb), reinforced
by activists from local organizations and representatives of the DM.
The most important of these included the chair of the Karlovy Vary
regional DSSS leadership, Jiří Froněk. Pavel "Kevin" Petrů, a fixture on
the neo-Nazi scene in Karlovy Vary also attended. Petrů ran as a DSSS
candidate and is a member of the racist white power band "Hlas krve"
(Voice of the Blood). Besides Froněk, the main person behind the
inviting of the German Nazis to Rotava is longtime neo-Nazi Lukáš
Stoupa.
Stoupa has long maintained
contacts with leading German neo-Nazis, and Antifa.cz has dedicated an
entire detailed article to him (in Czech only at
http://www.antifa.cz/content/osa-brno-varsava-aneb-kouzlo-nechteneho-ii).
The Freies Netz Süd (FNS) was behind the organization of the two buses
from Bavaria that traveled to Rotava, and its leading members are in
contact with Stoupa. FNS was founded in 2008 in Bavaria and is a very
active organization bringing together several local neo-Nazi cells.
Their activities include monitoring their political opponents and
physically assaulting them. FNS members are also responsible for many
racist attacks. The hard core of this organization is comprised of
former members of the banned neo-Nazi organization "Fränkischen
Aktionsfront" (FAF), who also participated in the Rotava demonstration.
Matthias Fischer, the
founder of both FNS and FAF, is one of the most active top neo-Nazis in
Germany. He has been active since the 1990s and is currently active as
part of the "Anti-Antifa" movement. He has been previously convicted of
neo-Nazi activity and is the found of the group "Aryan Hope", whose logo
is tattooed on his head. Through that organization he has contacts
worldwide, primarily with the Hungarian Nazi scene.
Stoupa was photographed in
Rotava in conversation with Daniel Weigl, an NPD member who is also an
important member of FNS. Weigl is currently on probation for assaulting
fans of the FC Bayern football club and giving the Nazi salute in front
of them. Another important FNS member seen in Rotava was Kai Zimmerman,
who currently is working primarily as a convener and organizer of
neo-Nazi demonstrations. One of his jobs is to follow and record footage
of political opponents and he brought his video camera with him to
Rotava. In the past Zimmerman has been convicted of grievous bodily harm
and disseminating neo-Nazi materials.
Then there is Sebastian
Schmaus, also an active "Anti-Antifa" photographer, and Norman Kempke, a
neo-Nazi "veteran" who has been active since the 1980s. Kempke is
currently active in the "Anti-Antifa" movement and in an organization to
aid neo-Nazi "political prisoners" (Hilfsorganisation für nationale
politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige). Next to Fischer and
Zimmerman he is one of the highest-ranking cadres in the FNS.
In order to complete the
picture of who exactly was attending the DSSS demonstration in Rotava,
let's look at one of the two people arrested by police and backed by the
Ústí regional organization of the DSSS, none other than the neo-Nazi
recidivist Ondřej Staník, a resident of nearby Sokolov. Staník belongs
to a group of neo-Nazis from the ranks of the National Resistance in the
Krušné hory district (Národní odpor z Krušnohoří) and is a close friend
of Pavel "Kevina" Petrů. He cannot be missed at neo-Nazi demonstrations
thanks to the tattoos on his head which extend onto his face. He has
been convicted more than once and is a recidivist who has done prison
time and reportedly has alcoholic tendencies.
After October's Nazi
demonstration in Rotava, many more or less radical declarations were
made about the exacerbated situation in the town. Romani residents
justifiably criticized local teachers for participating in the neo-Nazi
march and representatives of Romani organizations promised a
counter-demonstration. Town leaders and police representatives jointly
talked them out of it. The town even issued a decree expressing its
resistance to such events: "We disagree with demonstrations and rallies
convened by people who do not live here. Such events do not solve the
town's problems, but worsen relations between people."
Last month the Nazis
announced they would be returning to Rotava, but they were jumping the
gun, because the athletic hall the DSSS wanted to use for its racist
agitation refused to rent its premises to the Nazis. While some Rotava
residents behaved correctly and rejected the DSSS event, the new mayor
welcomed it with open arms. According to information that has recently
come to light, she was behind the decision to rent municipally-owned
space to the DSSS Nazis.
As news server Romea.cz has
reported (see
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_3098),
Mayor of Rotava Iva Kalátová argued to iDNES.cz that the hall was not
being rented by the town, but by the cultural and information center
where the DSSS event will take place. She said there was no reason to
reject the party if what will be held there is a meeting. "We do not
have the right to ban it," the mayor said.
Kalátová's statement makes
it seem as if the cultural and information center is an independent
entity and as if the mayor had no influence over the decision. However,
Hana Mašková of the center claims to be just an employee. She says the
center is linked to the municipality and she cannot take independent
decisions: "Madame Mayor and the other town councilors knew about this
rental," Mašková elucidated to news server Romea.cz.
Kalátová made a statement to
news server Romea.cz about the rental at the start of January. When
asked for a statement on what the DSSS had posted on their website about
the upcoming event, she replied: "I don't follow the DSSS website.
However, the town, as the owner of those spaces, has the right to rent
them to those who are interested. The DSSS was interested." Deputy Mayor
Jan Šedlbauer commented on the rental at the start of January as
follows: "I personally know nothing about this rental of space to the
DSSS. Madame Mayor is responsible for those decisions."
The new mayor of Rotava
became yet another piece on the chessboard when she decided to go the
route of intensifying conflict there. Not only has she taken up the
time-tested populist/racist arguments of her predecessor from the Civic
Democrats, who is responsible for some of the problems in Rotava today,
she is now causing new problems which will gradually come to light in
future.
The mayor has let herself be
heard in the media three times as saying that she opposes
demonstrations in her town that won't resolve anything - but it is not
the Nazis' upcoming demonstration she is taking a stance on. Her decree
was issued in the context of an announced demonstration by Romani
people, which she succeeded, together with police, in talking them out
of. Her most recent move has been to bank on facilitating another racist
provocation in spaces run by the town. Anyone who can do all that must
have a completely flawed sense of justice. If Iva Kalátová has decided
to carry on the mayoral tradition in Rotava of behaving like an
incompetent asset-stripper and racist who can't be trusted, then she's
in the right place.
Excerpted by František Kostlán, translated by Gwendolyn Albert
ROMEA
ROMEA
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