Donald Trump brought me here today: Counterprotesters rout neo-Nazi rally in Berlin

Neo-Nazis rallied Saturday in Berlin. Under strict guidelines, they were only allowed one flag for every 50 people. (Isaac Stanley-Becker/The Washington Post)



There is only one side — the good side,” cried Eva Kese, mustering a smile as she fought back tears. “Your hate has no place here.”

Kese, 30, stood Saturday facing a crowd of about 500 neo-Nazis. They were gathered on the outskirts of the German capital to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, a deputy to Adolf Hitler. The demonstration marked another, more recent anniversary: one week since a march by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Virginia left one counterprotester dead.

Kese held up a sign with a hand-drawn pink heart to the neo-Nazis, who countered with a giant banner of their own, reading, “I regret nothing.”

Choosing her words carefully, she repeated: “There is only one side.”

President Trump, she said, had drawn her to the streets of the German capital to counter the demonstration. She was incensed by his reaction to the violence in Charlottesville last weekend, in which he blamed “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

“Donald Trump brought me here today,” said Kese, a mother of two who was born in Germany. “You can't stand for an ideology that says one side is inferior.”

The rally in Berlin was planned before global attention turned to Charlottesville, but it took on new meaning after a week dominated by discussion of the Nazi past. Counterprotesters said they felt new urgency to denounce Germany's dark history — particularly in the former capital of the Third Reich — after watching it reemerge like a phantom and haunt an American college town.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/19/donald-trump-brought-me-here-today-counterprotesters-rout-neo-nazi-rally-in-berlin/