Ústí shop windows boarded up for first time since 1938 as neo-Nazis plan march

The northern city of Ústí nad Labem is bracing itself for a march by neo-Nazis on Saturday that has the potential to end in violence. The march is going ahead after the city council exhausted all legal avenues to stop it, and a large police presence is being deployed to prevent trouble from getting out of hand.

Concert against the march, photo: CTK

The march is being organised by a group called the Autonomous Nationalists, a Czech far-right group inspired by German neo-Nazis and with close links to the hardcore Czech neo-Nazi movement Národni Odpor or National Resistance.

The Autonomous Nationalists have adopted the tactics of the far-left to create a so-called “Black Block” – i.e. they’ve dispensed with ostentatious neo-Nazi symbols and dress instead, like anarchists, in black jeans and black hoodies to confuse the police.

They say they’re holding the march on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Allied bombing of Ústí nad Labem in 1945. Historians, however, say there was no bombing on April 18th 1945. Experts in far-right extremism point to the significance of the date – 18 being neo-Nazi code for AH, the first and eighth letters of the alphabet. The anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birth is two days later, on April 20th, and observers believe this is the real reason for the march.

Illustrative photo

After trying unsuccessfully to ban the march - the court overruled the ban on freedom of speech grounds - Ústí, like Přerov, Chomutov and many other cities before it, is now literally battening down the hatches. Shop windows are being boarded up apparently for the first time since 1938, when the original Nazis marched through the city.

There will be a massive police presence, and according to local media reports German police have warned their Czech colleagues that up to 700 German neo-Nazis could join the march, partly because of the difficulty of holding their own Hitler anniversary marches in Germany itself.

The Autonomous Nationalists are taking no risks – their website gives an exhaustive list of what marchers can and cannot wear, do or say, warning that the slightest infringement of these rules could provide the police with an excuse to ban it on the spot.