Paint Attack on the Magnus Poser Memorial

On the night of 19 February 1996, extensive desecration of the Magnus Poser Memorial at Jena’s Nordfriedhof (North Cemetery) was discovered. Swastikas and an SS rune were painted in white paint on the stele of the communist resistance fighter, who was murdered in Buchenwald. In the inscription “Ehre der Helden des antifaschistischen Widerstandskampfes” (“Honor to the heroes of the antifascist resistance struggle”), the word “anti” and the symbolic triangle — the concentration camp marker for political prisoners — were painted over in white, and Ignatz Bubis, then chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, was disparaged. Effectively serving as a letter claiming responsibility was the inscription “Der Nationale Widerstand Jena” (“The National Resistance Jena”), legible on a step and likewise accompanied by further swastikas. The perpetrators, suspected to be from the circle around Böhnhardt, Mundlos, and Zschäpe, could not be identified. Traces of the act remain clearly visible to this day.

(Text and image: Frank Döbert)

External sources

OTZ Jena, 22.2.1996, 29.2.1996.