"No room for Nazis."
jonje - 09.05.2002 01:13
8 May 2002. Left-wing activists protest right-wing gathering on anniversary of Nazi surrender.
Wenen, 8 mei 2002.
VIENNA --Thousands of students and left-wing activists demonstrated in
downtown Vienna Wednesday to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany´s
surrender to the Allies and protest a gathering of right-wing student
fraternities elsewhere in the city.
Authorities deployed 2,000 police officers across the city to prevent
clashes between left-wing activists and far-right extremists.
Several thousand students and left-wing activists first gathered near
Vienna University, then joined others to march through downtown streets
with banners denouncing fascism and right-wing student groups.
Police said 3,000 people took part in the march; organizers put the
number at up to 6,000.
Several people carried Soviet flags with the hammer-and-sickle emblem,
others held pictures of Lenin and some were seen carrying banners of Che
Guevara.
One banner said, "No room for Nazis."
Alex Burian, 29, a computer programmer, wearing a bright red T shirt
emblazoned with the words "Anti-Nazi League," carried a sign saying
"Haider is Hitler," a reference to far-right populist Joerg Haider, the
former leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which is part of the
Austrian coalition government.
"I came here to demonstrate against the fascists, to show that there is
a democratic force opposing them and negating their ideology and to show
the world that there are more anti-fascists than fascists in Austria,"
he told a reporter near the university.
Meanwhile, some 400 right-wing student fraternity members gathered on a
square near the former imperial Hofburg palace and then walked in a
torch-lit parade under police escort to a courtyard inside the Hofburg
complex for a commemoration mourning the death of Nazi soldiers.
Police turned sections of the centre into no-go zones and erected
barricades at the entrance to Heldenplatz, or Heroes´ Square, where
Hitler addressed thousands of Viennese shortly after Austria was
absorbed into Nazi Germany in 1938.
Several store owners had boarded over windows in the central shopping
district ahead of the rallies but little trouble was reported, with only
some minor skirmishes between police and a hardcore of activists at the
entrance to Heldenplatz.
Petra Kimm, a 19-year-old university student, said: "I think it is a
scandal that the right extremists are allowed to demonstrate twice
within a month. It is important to show that the people who don´t
support such policies are many more and much stronger."
On April 13, leftists staging a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi
rally clashed with police, and 33 officers and 18 protesters were
injured. The melee began when far-right activists gathered in protest of
a museum exhibition on atrocities that German soldiers committed during
World War II.
Wednesday was the 57th anniversary of Germany´s capitulation and the end
of World War II in Europe. The Nazis surrendered on May 7, 1945, and the
next day was declared Victory in Europe Day.
AP (with additional material by Reuters).
 Website: http://www.DeWaarheid.nu
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