where are your nazis?

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Christoph Rehage

antifa stickers

Yes, neo-nazism. Eisenach apparently had a problem. Or rather: it had an even bigger problem than many other places. The far-right AfD had won four seats in the city council, and the even more far-right NPD also had won four seats.

I had no other way of gauging the situation but to look for stickers and graffiti, but the only ones I found looked like they were from the other end of the political spectrum. Better antifascism than fascism, I thought, the kids are alright.

nazis in hiding

I was already on my way out of Eisenach when I noticed the first ambiguous graffito. NAZI KIEZ it said: NAZI HOOD. I was confused: had this been made by a neo-nazi who wanted to proudly proclaim the political identity of their neighborhood? Or was this the work of a political opponent who wanted to say that there were too many nazis in the area?

A lady on her morning walk explained it to me. “Look over there,” she said, “you see the name Wieschke? That’s a local neo-nazi from the NPD. This was probably made by leftists.”

I looked up the name Patrick Wieschke later, and much to my surprise, he wasn’t just an NPD bigwig, but he had also been charged with sexual molestation of a twelve-year-old.

Nazis being nazis.

goat carousel

The rest of the way was easy. There was an emotional moment I witnessed several flocks of birds joining each other in the sky above me, only to then fly onwards into the sunset.

When I arrived at a farm that I had noticed on the satellite map, it turned out to be a goat farm. Four hundred goats, dozens of them in a rotating milking machine at once. “Do you want to sleep in the barn with the goats?” Mira, the owner, asked me.

I opted for the barn with the bales of hay and straw instead.