It is the 11th of February 2024, and I am standing on the Neumarkt square in front of the Frauenkirche.
I remember being a child, marvelling at the heap of rubble which was this church until the nineties. For five decades after the war, it had been left as a ruin, a remainder and reminder of the horrible events 79 years ago.
In front of me, in the middle of the square Neumarkt, there is a giant stand with a slogan that says (in English), A slogan can never catch the complexity of it all.
For family reasons, I am in Dresden, in this beautiful baroque-laden city, whose inhabitants, people of an unhurried general friendliness, speak in a dialect which I have always found and still find comforting. Their musical way of rising their intonation at the end of every sentence gives off such a robust optimism that I find it impossible to imagine Dresdners quarrelling.
Well …
79 years ago, this cozy city was turned to ashes, after Germany had done the same to other cities, whose inhabitants its power-mad Führer had declared not worth living.
This terrible event has been remembered every year. Its terribleness seems to make it a target for other terrible things. For today, a group of mind-addled people (or their leaders) are planning to march through the city, carrying torches and spreading fear. They call this march a “funeral march”.
The people of Dresden have enough of that. They are planning to counter it with demonstrations in different places. I want to join them. I have crossed the high water of the Elbe river in the heavy rain, together with the person I share my life with.
First, we have to find the right demonstration.
No demonstration to be found on the Neumarkt. Instead, there is the huge stand with the self-mocking slogan. A slogan can never catch the complexity of it all.
A young couple is standing in front of the slogan, looking touristy and slightly lost and not noticing me trying to take a photo of the slogan, which is half hidden behind them. When I ask them if they would like to be in the picture, they jump off like frightened deer. I take the photo and we continue looking for the Nazi opposers we want to join.
Instead of multicoloured protesters with vivid umbrellas, we find a group of anti-fascist activists all clad in black, marching determinedly towards the street the Nazi mourners are planning to march down. The road, however, is blocked from us by a wall of policemen, wearing black uniforms, and their cars, who are stationed there to keep the Antifa and the Fa apart.
Consulting the social media for the whereabouts of the colourful protesters, I learn a new word: a loudspeaker used on demonstrations is affectionately called a Lauti (from Lautsprecher, loudspeaker).
The Lautis of the Antifa group make my diaphragm vibrate and shake up the surrounding guts. We walk on, along the wall made of policemen and -women and their cars. Trying to attract police apprentices, some of the cars carry another slogan: Verdächtig gute Jobs (Suspiciously good jobs).
There is some complexity in this slogan, I think.
We are standing there in the rain, among other protesters, getting wet; the police are standing in front of us, also getting wet. Then the mourning Nazis come walking down the heavily guarded street. At least they are getting wet, too.
They, too, are clad in black. Apart from that, they look so much like Nazi stereotypes that I find it difficult to believe they are real. They wear bomber jackets and hairstyles like the baddies in films about the Third Reich. But they don’t carry torches, maybe the rain has put them out. Only their music does not fit the Nazi stereotype at all; bizarrely, their Lautis blare out a slow movement from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”.
Now it is our task to boo them, through the rows of cars and police.
Shame on you, the Dresdners shout angrily, abandoning their usual good temper but not their lovely dialect. In order to show that they do not feel any shame, the mourning Nazis behind the wall start grinning. The grin makes them look uncomfortable.
I feel uncomfortable, too. This has several reasons.
Firstly, I am in the habit, by nature and by profession, to try to understand all sides of a conflict. Here, this is not possible. I cannot understand the other side; I am here to shout at it.
Secondly, it is still raining hard, and parts of me are starting to soak through.
Thirdly, and most importantly, contrary to a widespread opinion about teachers, I am strongly averse to shouting at people. I am especially loath to shouting at minorities, and those Nazis, thank God, are a minority. At the same time, I feel the duty to tell this pseudo-mourning marching mob to shut up.
If I do not shout at them now, they will shout at us later, when it is too late. This Later seems to be the subject of the mourning Nazis’ dreams, I can read it in their faces.
Nazis verpisst euch – keiner vermisst euch!, the angry demonstrators shout. (Nazis fuck off – nobody will miss you!) I bring myself to join in – for the second half of the slogan.
Es gibt – kein Recht – auf Nazipropaganda! is easier. I join in for the whole slogan. There is no right to Nazi propaganda!
I would like to invent a cool and clever slogan to shout, but my head feels like an empty ringing pot, blacked out by all the black clothes, numbed by the noise and the shouting and the anger that is flying through the air, mingling with the cold raindrops.
We need a slogan that drives the Nazis away from here, just like they want to drive other people out, people who seek or have found shelter in our country. But if we drive them out, where should the Nazis go? Nazis dissolve?
Too much complexity. I cannot find a slogan.
Nazis raus!, I shout together with the others, because I cannot think of anything better. Nazis out! When I turn round, I see a wet demonstrator carrying a cardboard. On the cardboard he has painted a kangaroo with red boxing gloves, a rainbow and the slogan: Nazis boxen!
A good slogan, short and uncomplex. We grin at each other, the kangaroo carrier, the kangaroo and I.
Abusing Vivaldi, wet and less numerous than expected, the mourning Nazis stomp on. Little do they know about the Antifa and their gut-curling Lauti, lying in wait for them in 200 metres down the heavily guarded road.
Little do we know what is lying in wait for us. The least we can do is keep booing the Nazis.
