East German town bans future placement of Holocaust memorial plaques

An east German town has approved a motion by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s governing centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to refuse the future installation of the brass plaques commemorating victims of Nazi persecution.

The “Stolpersteine” are a prominent feature of Germany’s Holocaust remembrance culture. Thursday’s decision in Heidenau, a town near Dresden in the eastern state of Saxony, comes as the AfD leads national polls ahead of Merz’s CDU.

Heidenau’s council voted to ban the laying of any further stones and to focus future remembrance on a memorial site at the town’s northern cemetery.

The move has fueled debate over the CDU’s adherence to the “Brandmauer”, the informal firewall through which Germany’s mainstream parties rule out formal cooperation with the AfD.

“I am horrified that a democratic party has chosen to support such a transparent maneuver by the extremist AfD,” said Charlotte Knobloch, the head of a regional Jewish association in Bavaria.

Supporters of the motion argued that many residents considered the cobblestone-like Stolpersteine inappropriate because they are set into the ground and can be stepped on.