Heidenau, a town near Dresden in Saxony, Germany, has banned "stumbling stone" memorials to Nazi victims after a vote by local councillors from the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party and the conservative CDU. These small brass plaques, placed outside former residences of Holocaust victims since the 1990s, are now deemed inappropriate by some citizens in Heidenau according to the motion passed at the town council meeting. Education Minister Karin Prien from the CDU criticized this decision, stating that it renders Jewish people invisible and prioritizes death over life.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-26,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Story summary
In Heidenau, a town near Dresden in eastern Germany, the city council approved a motion on September 25, 2026, to ban future installations of brass plaques commemorating victims of Nazi persecution. The decision was supported by both the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). These "stumbling stones" or Stolpersteine are small brass memorials embedded in sidewalks near where victims once lived or worked. Critics argue that this move challenges Germany’s commitment to Holocaust remembrance, with Education Minister Karin Prien calling it a "scandal." The CDU's involvement has sparked debate about the effectiveness of Germany’s informal firewall, known as the "Brandmauer," which aims to prevent mainstream parties from cooperating formally with the AfD.
Written for “German Town Banning Holocaust Memorials” on 2026-10-05,
grounded in this article and the 2 other(s) covering the same event.
- Published
There has been a wave of criticism in Germany after the town of Heidenau, near Dresden in Saxony, decided to ban "stumbling stone" memorials to victims of the Nazis.
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Germany's Education Minister Karin Prien told Bild newspaper the ban was a "scandal".
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Since the 1990s, many towns in countries across Europe, including in Germany and Austria, have embedded small brass plaques in the streets in memory of Jews and other victims of Nazi atrocities.
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The plaques, called Stolpersteine in German, are often placed outside the houses where the victims used to live or work.
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They are frequently funded by donations.
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But now councillors from the Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) and the conservative CDU in Heidenau have voted to ban stumbling stones in their town.
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The AfD in Saxony has been classified as extreme-right by German intelligence, a designation the party rejects.
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The motion in the town council said that many citizens felt that this form of commemoration of Nazi victims was inappropriate.
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Memorials should in future be placed at the city's Nordfriedhof cemetery to make it "impossible to step directly onto the memorial elements", the motion stated.
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However, Karin Prien, who is a member of the CDU, criticised the decision.
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"Anyone who banishes Stolpersteine and memorial sites commemorating Jewish life from public spaces to the cemetery is prioritising death over life and rendering Jewish people invisible once again," she told German paper Bild.
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She said her own CDU party in Saxony also bore responsibility for the decision.
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Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish Community in Munich, said that removing memorials from the cityscape was "completely the wrong approach".
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removing → say → cityscape
Speaking to the Funke Media Group, she said she was "appalled that a democratic party would stoop to supporting such a transparent manoeuvre by the extremists of the AfD".
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Knobloch said that she was not a supporter of the stumbling stones, but added that "decentralised remembrance – which is not banished from public space but, on the contrary, permeates and shapes it" was crucial to a genuine culture of remembrance.
In her own city of Munich, there are no Stolpersteine on municipal land.
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Instead, the city allows memorial plaques on public buildings.
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Gunter Demnig, the artist who initiated the Stolperstein project, said that given the recent electoral successes of the AfD "it was certainly to be expected that something like this would happen".
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The AfD recently secured major victories in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
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Some branches of the populist AfD are classed as right-wing extremist by domestic intelligence, a designation the party strongly rejects.
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party → class → intelligence
Its anti-immigration, "Germany first" and Russian-friendly agenda has found fertile ground in the country's former communist east.
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