BERLIN — At a Berlin ceremony honoring those who tried and failed to kill Adolf Hitler 82 years ago, a descendant of one of the Nazi regime’s executed opponents made a dramatic move against the far-right Alternative for Germany party — attempting to physically remove the party’s wreath from the memorial grounds.
Tobias Korenke, a great-nephew of Protestant pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, tried to pull away the wreath that had been placed by the AfD’s parliamentary group at Monday’s event. The gathering was held at the very site where the key figures behind the assassination plot were put to death. According to German news agency dpa, security personnel stepped in and the wreath was damaged during the confrontation.
“Many descendants, myself included, feel really great anger when we see AfD laying wreaths here,” Korenke said. “We will not accept this.”
The AfD, which came in second place in last year’s German national election and now holds the position of the country’s largest opposition party, strongly pushes back against any characterization of itself as extremist. The party is eyeing its first-ever state governor’s seat as three German regions head to the polls in September.
The AfD’s parliamentary group acknowledged it had supplied a wreath for the memorial, though it remained unclear whether any party members were physically present at the event, dpa reported. AfD lawmaker Götz Frömming defended the party’s participation, noting that as one of the parties with seats in the German parliament, it receives official invitations to such events.
The memorial marks the anniversary of July 20, 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler using a bomb hidden in a briefcase during a meeting at the Nazi dictator’s headquarters in what was then the German region of East Prussia. Hitler survived because someone had moved the briefcase next to a table leg, which redirected much of the blast away from him. Once word spread that Hitler had lived, the entire plot fell apart.
Von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators were executed within hours of the failed attempt. Bonhoeffer, who had ties to the plotters, was put to death in 1945.
The memorial ceremony proceeded as scheduled, featuring a speech by Education Minister Karin Prien.
Karl von Stauffenberg, a grandson of the colonel, spoke to Welt television and said the AfD was attempting to use his grandfather’s legacy for its own purposes. Even so, he stopped short of saying the party should be barred from the event. “We are democrats … we must see that we also allow people who think differently to speak,” he said.
