CDU and AfD vote together to ban Stolpersteine in Heidenau

The Heidenau city council voted 13 to 6 with one abstention on Thursday to halt the installation of new Stolpersteine — brass plaques commemorating Nazi victims — on public sidewalks. The motion was jointly submitted by the CDU, the AfD, and a local association, arguing the memorials are inappropriate because names would be stepped on.

Existing stones, including one for former mayor Paul Gröger, will remain, but 12 pending requests are now blocked. Commemoration is to be confined to the city's northern cemetery, where direct access to memorial elements is excluded.

“Whoever erases the victims of the past erases the past itself.”

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor said he was "ashamed" and warned that erasing victims from public space erases history itself. Charlotte Knobloch, president of Munich's Jewish community, and CDU politician Karin Prien called the decision a scandal that makes Jews invisible again.

Mayor Conny Oertel, an independent who opposed the motion, downplayed the vote, stating the city still wants to commemorate but disagreed only on the method. The artist Gunter Demnig, creator of the Stolpersteine project, expressed dismay via his foundation.