After coordination in the Bundestag: Dedicated to the Nazi commemorative medal returns in protest

After the recent migration votes in the Bundestag, the Mannheim photographer Luigi Toscano and the Holocaust-survivor Albrecht Weinberg returned their Order of Merit. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had spoken to both, regretted her step “deeply”. He said: “The use of the excellent for our democracy is of outstanding importance. My respect and my recognition for your merits continue.” He made this clear to them.

Reaction to Union behavior in the Bundestag

With their decision, Toscano and Weinberg reacted to the fact that the Union in the Bundestag had made an application and draft law for tightening the migration course to vote and openly accepted that it received a majority with the help of the AfD. The application was accepted, but the bill failed. The joint coordination of the Union, FDP and AfD led to a scandal in the Bundestag. For the first time, the AfD obtained a majority in the plenum.

“This is a turning point for me because ultimately what has taken place is intolerable, that hurt a lot,” said Toscano in Berlin. He had returned his medal of merit and also the Federal Cross of Merit of his friend Weinberg.

“Gained trust by dealing with Nazi law”

Steinmeier said: “The memory of the crimes of National Socialist Germany and the obligation to fight new right -wing extremism are part of our continued responsibility.” Germany had acquired confidence in the inward and external, with the processing of the injustice that has been achieved for decades. “The fact that the credibility in the eyes of two committed personalities is damaged that Albrecht Weinberg lives so shortly before his 100th birthday in burning concern about the starking right -wing extremism.”

Toscano: “He accepted the return of the order”

Toscano met Steinmeier for a personal conversation, as he said himself. “He accepted the return of the order,” said the artist afterwards. “But which is also very clear: the values ​​behind it, the achievements, the achievements, which are behind it, this appreciation is not withdrawn.” The 99-year-old vineyard from Leer in East Frisia asked him to submit his Federal Cross of Merit because he was something frail.

“I addressed him that I would like to look more at us, to us citizens who go to the demos who raise their voice,” said Toscano. “I want a little more support.” He also calls for a clear distance from CDU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz from working with the AfD – through a formal decision in the party.

Weinberg had been shocked after the result of the vote in the Bundestag. It was a spontaneous decision to return the Federal Cross of Merit, which was a high honor for him. He wanted to do the same as his friend Toscano. “It has become too difficult to wear it when you have such messages. Terrible,” he told the German Press Agency.

Weinberg’s family was almost completely murdered by the Nazis

Weinberg survived the three concentration camps Auschwitz, central building dora in the Harz, Bergen-Belsen near Celle and several death marches. His Jewish family was almost completely murdered by the Nazis. In 2012 he returned to his East Frisian homeland with his sister from the USA. Since then he has been in schools and reports pupils about his memories.

Toscano, photographer and filmmaker, publicly draws the fate of the survivors with the memory project “against forgetting” and pays attention to the last contemporary witnesses of the Nazi crimes.