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8 May 1985 in Nesselwang: Waffen-SS Veterans, Antifascists, and Punks

Author: Robert Bentley

„Außer der Reihe“ bildet neben den Projektbeiträgen ein weiteres festes Format des „Denken ohne Geländer“-Blogs. Dieses bietet Forscher/-innen am HAIT sowie Gastautor/-innen Raum für Beiträge zu aktuellen Themen, die eng mit den Forschungsschwerpunkten am Institut verbunden sind. Die Bandbreite möglicher Perspektiven und Schwerpunkte ist groß. Sie reicht von der Einordnung aktueller politischer und gesellschaftlicher Ereignisse in bestimmte historische, geographische oder kulturelle Kontexte über unkonventionelle, episodische Einblicke in den Forschungsalltag bis hin zur kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit theoretischen oder methodischen Entwicklungen in den Geistes-, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Im folgenden Beitrag widmet sich Robert Bentley der langen Geschichte der Zusammenarbeit zwischen alten und neuen Nazis in der Nachkriegszeit und den Bemühungen von Punks und anderen linken Aktivisten, Rechtsextremisten gewaltsam zu bekämpfen, am Beispiel des Waffen-SS-Treffen in Nesselwang am 8. Mai 1985.

Punk demonstrator talks with a police officer nearby the Hotel Krone in Nesselwang at a protest against former members of the Waffen-SS on 12.5.1985.

Nestled at the foot of the Alps in Allgäu, Bavaria, the idyllic town of Nesselwang offers visitors a picturesque view of Germany’s most beautiful natural splendor. In 1985, it caught the attention of former members of the Waffen-SS who sought to hold their annual reunion in the town. The ensuing reunion saw overwhelming national and international press coverage due to an antifascist rally as well as violent demonstrations carried out by punks and other left-wing activists. Taking place during the height of the Historikerstreit, the events in Nesselwang show how grassroot actors, such as trade unionists, antifascists alliances, and punks, effectively mobilized to combat manifestations of postwar fascism while simultaneously advocating for the establishment of German memory culture (Erinnerungskultur).1

In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg labeled the SS and its umbrella organizations as a criminal organization. Despite this pronouncement, around 250,000 former members of the Waffen-SS lived unmolested in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and quickly began organizing themselves after WWII.2 In the early 1950s, Waffen-SS members formed the Mutual Aid Society of Former Waffen-SS Members (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der ehemaligen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS – HIAG) to rehabilitate veterans socially.3 Essential to HIAG was its deceptive campaign insisting that the Waffen-SS and the broader SS acted as the fourth arm of the Wehrmacht and therefore deserved the benefit of provisions set aside through article 131 of the German Basic Law.4 HIAG even functioned as a non-taxable, non-profit organization and was indirectly subsidized by taxpayer money.5

 In early 1985, Walter Krüger, a high-ranking Waffen-SS commander and war criminal, struggled to locate an event space for the annual reunion of Waffen-SS veterans. From 1961 until the 1980s, Krüger and his comrades evaded the public gaze by filing their events under the name “Comradeship Association of the Soldiers of the 1st Panzer Corps”, (Kameradschaftsverband der Soldaten des I. Panzer-Korps der ehemaligen Waffen-SS e.V.). However, after a journalist uncovered the true nature of the groups’ members and their affiliation with HIAG in the early 1980s, antifascist organizations drew attention to the veterans and, in some cases, successfully pressured local citizens and politicians to ban such reunions from occurring in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).6

The rejections continued until a lifeline came in the form of an old SS comrade: Rolf Buchheister. A former member of the Waffen-SS division “Das Reich”, Buchheister agreed to host the veteran’s annual reunion at his Hotel Krone located in the small Bavarian town of Nesselwang. Three different SS divisions were to stay over two weekends at Buchheister’s hotel: the 3rd SS-Panzer-Division “Totenkopf” from May 2-5, the 1st SS-Panzer-Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”, and the 12th SS-Panzer-Division “Hitlerjugend” from May 11-12. The reunion was to coincide with the Day of Liberation on May 8th and sent a clear message to West Germany and the world: Nazism was to stay in Germany.

            Despite this provocative message, resistance quickly materialized in an antifascist league comprised of left-leaning political parties, grassroots left-wing activists, and trade unions. The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists (Die Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes – Bund der Antifaschisten – VVN-BdA) announced a protest for May 11, 1985, in Nesselwang to draw both national and international attention to the reunion.7

            The VVN-BdA as well as HIAG knew a private reunion could be legally banned. In May 1984, members of the VVN-BdA successfully urged the mayor of Bad Harzburg in Lower Saxony to ban a HIAG reunion scheduled to take place there. The Lower Saxony Higher Administrative Court (Oberverwaltungsgericht für das Land Niedersachsen) even upheld the ban after HIAG sued the mayor, basing their decision on the historical context relating to the formation of the National Opposition in 1931 in Bad Harzburg.

Through the VVN-BdA’s announcement, other organizations learned about the call for resistance. One of the organizations was the German Trade Union Federation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – DGB). Comprised of millions of members, the DGB functioned as the umbrella organization of Germany’s major trade unions. The Chairman of the DGB for the Allgäu district and one of the key organizers of the demonstration, Rolf Bickelhaupt, began leading educational sessions in the region on the crimes of the Waffen-SS and organized outreach to the press.8 Working together, the DGB and the VVN-BdA, fashioned an alliance of 130 representatives from various Allgäu trade unions, political parties – such as the SPD, DKP, and the Greens – youth organizations, peace initiatives, and catholic church groups.

Chief among the antifascist alliances’ concerns was the invitation of young neo-Nazis to the reunion by Waffen-SS veterans. The alliance wrote in their leaflets that those coming to Nesselwang “are not old comrades who are meeting to socialize, but eternalists who to want to revive the ‘old spirit’ of the past and have invited young guests for this purpose.”9 These young guests were neo-Nazis from Wiking-Jugend (WJ) and Jugendbund Adler (JBA), all of whom received invitations at the behest of Otto Ernst Remer, a former Wehrmacht officer and far-right politician after WWII.10 The planned reunion in Nesselwang was therefore a concerted effort to ensure like-minded neo-fascists sustained Nazi ideals.

The antifascist call to action proved successful at the local, national, and international level with 1,500 organizations and individuals from across Europe giving their support to the movement.11 Notable backing came from former Chancellor Willy Brandt and the Dutch parliament, which sent a petition barring the signatures of every member of parliament calling for a ban on the SS gathering in Nesselwang.

While mobilization efforts such as educational gatherings helped gain awareness, the antifascist alliance still sought an outright ban on the SS reunion in Nesselwang. The mayor of Nesselwang, Oswald Kainz (CSU), informed the VVN-BdA and the DGB in early March 1985 that he lacked the legal power stop the reunion from transpiring due to its private nature at Buchheister’s Hotel Krone. The same pronouncement came from the Ostallgäu District, the Government of Swabia, and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior.12 If the event was to be banned, the ruling would have to come from the Federal Government. However, when the SPD raised a motion in Bonn on April 16 to ban the reunion, the CDU/CSU and FDP coalition voted it down on April 25, just two weeks before the reunion. Coalition politicians argued that a ban could not be supported under German Basic Law because the reunion was of a private nature, a point refuted by the example of the ban issued in Bad Harzburg.13

The lack of a ban and federal condemnation of the reunion sparked outrage from the center-left parties and the public. The Greens declared to the press the following day on April 26, 1985, that the coalition’s refusal to condemn the reunion meant a “’clear approval of the existence of Nazi and neo-Nazi rallying movements…The CDU/CSU,’ so full of consideration for the German-nationalist dregs in its ranks, ‘could not even muster the strength to speak out against the meetings of the old comrades.’”14 In the SPD’s antifascist magazine, Blick nach Rechts, the author claimed that the federal attitude regarding the matter created a seal of approval of SS veteran actions which would only serve to further embolden them.15 Public scrutiny of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s government only intensified a few weeks later when he and President Ronald Reagan participated in a wreath laying ceremony at a Bitburg cemetery, the burial plot of which contained 49 Waffen-SS soldiers. What was meant to be a symbolic gesture of West German and American friendship, and an absolving of German national guilt instead became a veneration of Holocaust perpetrators and war criminals.16 For Walter Krüger in Nesselwang, Reagan’s visit “honored all soldiers and showed that we [Waffen-SS] were just like the others.”17

For members of the antifascist alliance, Reagan’s Bitburg controversy further demonstrated the need to protest against the Waffen-SS veterans and on May 11, 1985, the largest antifascist protest the town had ever witnessed began. The protest was held at a ski stadium with a wide range of speakers from the DGB, VVN-BdA, SPD, the Greens, DKP, and invited foreign speakers. One speaker was Camille Senon, one of seven survivors of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in France which occurred on June 10, 1944. Perpetrated by the 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich”, this was the same division to which Hotel Krone owner Buchheister belonged.18 Speaking to a crowd of 5,000 peaceful protestors, Camille attacked the FRG for allowing such a reunion to take place and bemoaned Reagan’s Bitburg visit as an exoneration of Waffen-SS veterans.19

Media coverage of the event consisted of over 200 journalists and 25 television crews from Europe, the USA, Canda, South America, Australia, and Israel.20 A global audience was keen to learn why the government in Bonn allowed the SS reunion to take place and how west German citizens would react to the reunion. While the peaceful protest attracted national and international attention, violent demonstrators, many of whom were punks, partially overshadowed the media’s coverage of the peaceful protest.

Before the peaceful protest at the ski stadium began, hundreds of punks and other protestors arrived en masse to Nesselwang to confront the Waffen-SS veterans and neo-Nazis at the Hotel Krone. One punk, Kai, came from Munich on a DGB charted bus and noted the eclectic crowd of punks, left-wing skinheads, autonomous (left), as well as plainly dressed individuals all making the same journey to the protest.21 After departing Munich and arriving in Nesselwang, Federal Border Police searched the bus twice over before directing the driver not to the peaceful DGB protest, but rather into town. As the bus neared the Hotel Krone, Kai heard chants of “we don’t want any nazi pigs” and “German police protect fascists.”

Kai quickly got off the bus, purchased eggs and beer, and merged with the 400 other violent demonstrators across from the Hotel Krone. He then joined the frenzy and threw raw eggs at the hotel and watched as others hurled beer bottles and stones which chipped away at the plaster façade.22 Some protestors even brandished baseball bats while others used the street itself as a weapon, ripping up stones to throw and dismantling garden fencing to wield as shields.23

The street battle escalated as police fought to prohibit the protestors from entering the hotel. Meanwhile, Waffen-SS veterans, neo-Nazis of the WJ and JBA, as well as members from the banned organization Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten (ANS) of Michael Kühnen, stood outside the hotel and insighted violence by verbally provoking the police to attack the demonstrators.24 After Kai, along with other left-wing activists, hurled eggs, tomatoes, firecrackers, and paint bombs, the police responded with water cannons laced with tear gas and then charged the demonstrators to clear the square.25 Despite the searing tear gas and torrents of water, some punks and other protestors continued to throw projectiles, eventually shattering every window and repainting the hotel’s façade in an array of colors.26 Out of the corner of his eye, Kai noticed a group of neo-Nazi skinheads who proudly raised their fingers in a “V” for victory.27

In the end, police arrested 71 demonstrators with reports identifying 15 demonstrators and police officers injured during the street battle.28 Action taken by Kai and other punks demonstrates how punks sometimes played a key role in often violent, antifascist demonstrations which in this case garnered overwhelming national and international attention from the media. Through their demonstrations at Nesselwang, punks joined in combatting both old and new manifestations of Nazism.

The events at Nesselwang offer a glimpse into West German history amid debates surrounding Germany’s memory culture. The grassroots mobilization of the VVN-BdA and DGB reflects a concerted effort to oppose meetings and reunions of Waffen-SS veterans in the FRG at a time when Kohl’s conservative government was unwilling to act. Finally, analyzing Nesselwang reveals the long history of postwar collaboration between old and new Nazis and the efforts taken by punks and other left-wing activists to violently combat right-wing extremists.

About the author:

Zitiervorschlag: Robert Bentley, „8 May 1985 in Nesselwang: Waffen-SS Veterans, Antifascists, and Punks”. In: Denken ohne Geländer. Der Blog des Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung e.V. vom 24.09.2025: https://haitblog.hypotheses.org/7522.

Photo: Punk demonstrator talks with a police officer nearby the Hotel Krone in Nesselwang at a protest against former members of the Waffen-SS on 12.05.1985. Source: Imago.

  1. The Historikerstreit, translated historians’ dispute, was a public debate in West Germany in the mid-1980s among historians, philosophers, and public intellectuals regarding how the crimes of Nazi Germany, especially those relating to the Holocaust, ought to be interpreted, explained, and remembered within German history. Cf. Peter Baldwin, Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Historians Dispute, Boston 1990. Erinnerungskultur, translated memory culture, refers to the collective manner in which German society remembers, interprets, and publicly engages with its past; Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Stanford 2009; Alon Confino, Germany as a Culture of Remembrance, Chapel Hill 2006. []
  2. Die HIAG – eine Organisation ehemaliger Angehöriger der Waffen SS. In: KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (http://www.neuengamme-ausstellungen.info/content/documents/thm/ss5_2_1_thm_2151.pdf; 28.8.2025). []
  3. Cf. Richard Stöss, Politics against Democracy: Right-Wing Extremism in West Germany, Oxford 1991, p. 138. []
  4. Article 131 of the German Basic Law provided a legal framework for restoring pension and employment rights to former public servants, soldiers, and others who had lost their positions as a result of WWII and the collapse of the Nazi regime. Cf. David Clay Large, Reckoning without the Past: The HIAG of the Waffen-SS and the Politics of Rehabilitation in the Bonn Republic, 1950-1961. In: The Journal of Modern History, 59 (1987) 1, pp. 79–113, here p. 87. []
  5. Cf. Spaziergang mit Mutti. In: Der Spiegel, 28.4.1985 (https://www.spiegel.de/politik/spaziergang-mit-mutti-a-4ce6cecd-0002-0001-0000-000013514012; 28.8.2025). []
  6. Cf. Ibid. []
  7. Cf. Kurt Faller/Heinz Siebold, Neofaschismus: Dulden? Verbieten? Ignorieren? Bekämpfen? Antifaschistisches Arbeitsbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 158. []
  8. Cf. Rolle der SS-Verbände und die Entwicklung zum Nazi-Regime diskutieren die Zuhörer engagiert. In: Lindauer Zeitung, 19.4.1985. In: Rolf Bickelhaupt/Rudolf Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, Frankfurt am Main 1985, pp. 1–168, here p. 16. []
  9. Rolf Bickelhaupt/Rudolf Schneider, Manifestation der 5000: “Kein SS-Treffen in Nesselwang und anderswo” Der Zentrale Wiederstand am 11. Mai 1985. In: Bickelhaupt/Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, p. 5. []
  10. Cf. Joachim Krischka, Mördertreffen hinter sauberer Fassade: elan-Redakteure unerkannt im Nazi-Hotel. In: Elan: das Jugendmagazin, Mai 1985. In: Bickelhaupt/Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, p. 134; Otto Ernst Remer was a German Wehrmacht officer who, during Operation Valkyrie on July 20, 1944, played a role in stopping the coup attempt by refusing to support the plotters and therefore ensured Hitler’s survival. Cf. Winfried Heinemann, Operation “Valkyrie”: A Military History of the 20th July 1944 Plot, Berlin 2021. []
  11. Cf. Bickelhaupt/Schneider, Manifestation der 5000, p. 6. []
  12. Cf. Oswald Kainz, Amtliche Bekanntmachung des Marktes Nesselwang. In: Allgäuer Zeitung, 10.5.1985. In: Bickelhaupt/Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, p. 112. []
  13. Cf. Ibid. []
  14. Rolf Bickelhaupt/Rudolf Schneider, Rücksichtnahme auf den deutsch-nationalen Bodensatz. In: Bickelhaupt/Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, p. 95. []
  15. Cf. Ibid. []
  16. Cf. Esra Özyürek, Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany, Redwood City 2023, p. 6; Wulf Kansteiner, In Pursuit of German Memory: History, politics, and television after Auschwitz, Athens 2016, p. 315. []
  17. William Drozdiak, Protesters Attack Hotel Hosting SS Reunion Former Nazi Soldiers Praise Reagan’s Tribute at Bitburg Cemetery. In: Washington Post, 12.5.1985 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/05/12/protesters-attack-hotel-hosting-ss-reunion-former-nazi-soldiers-praise-reagans-tribute-at-bitburg-cemetery/0658355f-664a-41b2-a08c-7c2dfebc7163/; 28.8.2025). []
  18. [1]On June 10, 1944, 643 civilians were murdered at the town of Oradour-sur-Glane when SS troops ordered all the men inside of barns where they were shot. 481 women and children were then ordered into a church which was set on fire; Cf. Florence Hervé, Ort des Schmerzes. In: Junge Welt, 7.6.2014 (https://florence-herve.com/wp-content/uploads/publikationen/reisereportagen/Tageszeitung-junge-Welt_Ort-des-Schmerzes_20140607.pdf; 28.8.2025). []
  19. Cf. Roman Arens, Blutspur der SS nicht vergessen. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 13.05.1985, p. 1. []
  20. Cf. Faller/Siebold, Neofaschismus, p. 161. []
  21. Kai is a pseudonym ascribed by the author whose story was anonymously published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung fanzine. []
  22. Cf. Nesselwang, oder: Gewalt erzeugt Gegengewalt. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1985 (Archiv der Jugendkulturen, Punk Deutschland A5.E1, nonpaginated). []
  23. Cf. Punks, skinheads protest SS reunion. In: United Press International, 11.5.1985 (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/05/11/Punks-skinheads-protest-SS-reunion/3714484632000/; 28.8.2025). []
  24. Cf. Agenturmeldung, Nesselwang 1. In: Progress-Presse-Agentur, 11.5.1985. In: Bickelhaupt/Schneider (eds.), Widerstand gegen die SS am Beispiel Nesselwang 1985, p. 23. []
  25. Cf. Ibid. []
  26. Cf. Bavarian Police Battle Protestors at Reunion of Nazi SS. In: L.A. Times, 12.5.1985 (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-05-12-mn-18510-story.html; 28.8.2025). []
  27. Cf. Nesselwang, oder: Gewalt erzeugt Gegengewalt. []
  28. Cf. Arens, Blutspur der SS. []

OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
haitblog (24. September 2025). 8 May 1985 in Nesselwang: Waffen-SS Veterans, Antifascists, and Punks. Denken ohne Geländer. Abgerufen am 14. November 2025 von https://doi.org/10.58079/14qiy


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