GENEVA — A city council in eastern Germany has voted to stop installing Stolpersteine, brass memorial plaques honoring Holocaust victims, prompting widespread outrage, especially after some members of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian‑Democratic Union teamed up with the far‑right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to support the measure.
The Heidenau city council, located southeast of Dresden, voted on Thursday to discontinue the practice of embedding the engraved brass Stolpersteine—memorial plaques bearing the names of Holocaust victims—into sidewalks, often replacing cobblestones near the victims’ former homes.
Created by German artist Gunter Demnig, the Stolpersteine—German for “stumbling blocks”—are palm‑sized brass plaques that list the names and fates of Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis. They have evolved into a central form of Holocaust remembrance across Germany.
The first Stolpersteine were installed in Cologne in 1992. Since then, more than 126,000 plaques have been placed in over 30 European countries, commemorating some of the six million Jews and others murdered in the Holocaust.
Council members from the far‑right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center‑right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) backed the municipal decision. Proponents argued that many Holocaust victims’ relatives find the stones disrespectful because pedestrians walk over them.
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, expressed “shame” over the decision, noting that some of the Berlin Stolpersteine commemorate his own relatives. “In Germany in the year 2026, a city council decides to no longer install new Stolpersteine,” he posted on X.
Many Jews have traveled to Germany for Stolpersteine ceremonies, honoring victims who perished in Nazi concentration camps. The plaques are regarded as the closest public equivalent to a grave or burial site.
Christian Meyer‑Heidemann, Schleswig‑Holstein’s state commissioner for political education, condemned Heidenau’s decision, calling it “a deliberate attack on our culture of remembrance,” in a statement to the German news agency dpa.
Heidenau, a town of roughly 16,000 residents, is not the only community to resist Stolpersteine. Munich prohibits the plaques on city‑owned land and has introduced alternative memorials. Some Jewish leaders there also oppose the stones, arguing that they allow victims’ names to be walked upon.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti‑immigration party strong in eastern Germany, has been gaining momentum. After recent electoral victories in two states, the party now leads in national polls as the most popular political force.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz has ruled out any cooperation with the AfD, which is frequently criticized for downplaying memories of the Nazi era that have shaped German politics and society since the war.
The AfD’s rise has put pressure on the mainstream parties’ long‑standing policy of non‑cooperation. In several regions, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the party as an extremist group.
“Following the AfD’s electoral successes, it was certainly to be expected that something like this would happen,” Gunter Demnig, the artist who created the Stolpersteine, was quoted as saying by dpa. He accused the CDU of “leaving their Christian roots behind.”
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