Several hundred German neo-Nazis took part in the fascist "Day of Honor" in Budapest on 9 February 2019. With swastikas, SS runes and the name-giving symbol of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party who collaborated with National Socialist Germany, a total of around 3000 demonstrators moved through the Hungarian capital. In speeches, Jews were openly harassed, and the Dortmund neo-Nazi Matthias Deyda concluded his speech with a quotation from Adolf Hitler.
The extreme right-wing demonstrators, some of whom wore historical uniforms of the fascist armies, referred to the Battle of Budapest in the winter of 1945. German troops of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS as well as the Hungarian Army had tried in February to break through a blockade of the Red Army. Several tens of thousands of soldiers died, and only a few hundred succeeded in breaking out.
Neo-Nazis have been commemorating this event in Budapest since 1997. In 2003 the Hungarian branch of the "Blood and Honour" network, banned in Germany, took over the lead of the organisation. According to cultural scientist Magdalena Marsovszky, the memorial day found its way into the official politics of remembrance through the government of Viktor Orbán and today influences the whole of Hungary in terms of cultural policy. In recent years, several events, including those of the regional administration of the governing party Fidesz, have always taken place, sometimes in the immediate vicinity and with joint participants.
This year's demonstrations began with a joint deployment of the neo-Nazi networks "Hammerskins", "Hatvannégy Vármegye Ifjúsági Mozgalom" (HVIM), "Skins4Skins" and "Blood and Honour". Since 2010, this demonstration had generally been suppressed by bans in smaller villages. This year about three hundred people followed the call to the centrally located Szell Kalman Square and laid wreaths at a war memorial in the adjacent park.
In his speech, a representative of the Swedish "Nordic Resistance Movement" invoked the "eternal, international and cosmopolitan globalist" as a "true enemy". This is a classic anti-Semitic code alluding to the Nazi jargon of "eternal Jews" and "international Judaism". The Dortmund "Die Rechte" activist Matthias Deyda quoted Adolf Hitler at the end of his speech with the words: "If our old enemy and adversary should once again try to attack us, then the storm flags will fly up and they will get to know us".
From other European countries, besides representatives of the small German party "Die Rechte" and the Swedish "Nordic Resistance Movement", the "Club 28 Serbia", the Ukrainian association C14 as well as right-wing extremists from Italy and Russia participated. Individual folders of the event were assigned to the Hungarian militant association "Betyarsereg" ("the outlaws").
With tattoos and clothes the participants expressed their proximity to terrorist organizations like the militant arm of the "Blood and Honour" network, "Combat 18".
In the late Saturday afternoon, about 2500 people gathered on Kapisztran Square in Budapest's castle complex to start the "Outbreak 60" march. This march is organized since 2009 by the fascist "action group Börzsöny". The participants, several hundred of whom were Germans, took part in the march, partly masked and in uniforms of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and the Hungarian army. By declaring the march a historical re-enactment, the Hungarian ban on uniforms for demonstrations could be circumvented. The only occasionally visible police also tolerated the carrying of weapons such as assault rifles and hand grenades. Whether these were replicas was apparently not checked.
At the "Ausbruch 60" march several travel groups of the parties "Der III. Weg" and "Die Rechte" as well as "Freie Kameradschaften". In addition to neo-Nazi officials such as Sebastian Dahl, Axel Schlimper and Marcel Zech, members of the right-wing rock band Kategorie C, Hannes Ostendorf and Stefan Ernie Behrens, as well as right-wing extremist RU-vidr Nikolai Nerling took part in the march.
The 60 km long march led the participants into the mountains west of Budapest. In the small town of Szomor they were greeted with Hitler salutes.
While about 2500 people set out for the march, which for most of them ended only on Sunday morning, the organizers of the "Blood and Honour" and "Hammerskins" demonstrations organized a far-right rock concert in the III. Budapest district. This concert was promoted among others by the Dresden band "Blutzeugen".
There were isolated protests against the right-wing extremist events by about 50 people, who were harassed and insulted with "Jews out" shouts. Participants of the "commemorative march" repeatedly showed the Hitler salute in the direction of the protesters. In Berlin, a dozen people gathered in front of the Hungarian Embassy to protest against the fascist remembrance.
9 фев 2019
