Nazis board wrong train, miss rally
German group cancels protest as 20 members end up in a different city; anti-fascist demonstration proceeds
Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
A German neo-Nazi rally in the city of Freiburg was called off on Monday afternoon after members of the fascist group accidentally boarded the wrong train.
According to The Guardian, some 20 National Democratic party (NPD) members were held back by police from boarding a bus full of far-left soccer fans, fearing a fight would break out between the two groups.
The police directed the neo-Nazis to a train platform instead, and conveyed the relevant information about the train routes.
However, the bumbling supremacists apparently got on the next train without checking its destination, arriving in Mannheim rather than Freiburg, where a protest in solidarity with a female NPD student — allegedly barred from taking an exam in public management due to her link with the neo-Nazi group — was scheduled for 2:30 pm.
Despite the neo-Nazi no-show, a counter-protest in Freiburg took place as planned, with the Freiburg deputy mayor, Otto Neideck, saying “We didn’t miss them.”
“I don’t know how it happened, but the NPD phoned us up and said they’re not coming, and that they’re on a train to Mannheim,” a police spokesperson said of the incident.
“The NPD is now saying they went to Mannheim deliberately.”
The Times of Israel Community.