A town in eastern Germany has approved a motion from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to halt the future installation of brass plaques honoring victims of Nazi persecution.
Known as “Stolpersteine,” the small, cobblestone-shaped memorials are a highly visible part of Germany’s culture of Holocaust remembrance.
The decision, approved Thursday in Heidenau near Dresden in Saxony, comes as the AfD leads national polling ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU.
The AfD has repeatedly questioned Germany’s approach to confronting its Nazi past. The party’s co-founder, Alexander Gauland, once dismissed the Nazi era as “bird shit” in an otherwise successful 1,000 years of German history.
Heidenau’s council voted to prevent additional plaques from being placed in the town and to focus future commemorations at a memorial site in the northern cemetery.
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The decision has intensified scrutiny of the CDU’s commitment to the “Brandmauer,” the informal political firewall under which Germany’s mainstream parties reject formal cooperation with the AfD.
Local representatives of the AfD and CDU did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
“I am appalled that a democratic party has chosen to support such a transparent maneuver by the extremist AfD,” Charlotte Knobloch, head of a Jewish regional association in Bavaria, told newspapers belonging to the Funke group.
The council’s decision went against a recommendation from Heidenau’s city administration.
“A blanket ban on future Stolpersteine is neither necessary for the creation of a central memorial nor justified by the proposal itself,” the administration said in a statement issued before the vote.
Supporters of the motion said many residents considered the plaques inappropriate because they are set into the pavement and can be walked over.
