Nazi SS Veterans to Hold Reunion Despite Efforts by Local Officials to Block Meeting

Veterans of the Nazi SS elite guard are expected to hold two reunions in Nesselwang next month and local officials said Friday they probably cannot prevent the meetings.

“It looks like nothing can be done to stop this,” said Mayor Oswald Kainz.

Father Franz Gress, a Roman Catholic priest who has been organizing efforts to stop the reunions, also predicted the meetings would be held.

“They plan to meet on private property and legally nothing can be done about it,” Gress said.

Gress said between 500 and 600 signatures have been collected on a petition in this southern Bavarian town protesting the two SS reunions, scheduled for early May.

He called the reunions a “deliberate provocation” because they will roughly coincide with the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, on May 8.

Kainz said the town council voted to condemn the reunions, but added that the municipality’s legal advisers have said little can be done to prevent the sessions.

Officials said the meetings are expected to be attended by about 500 former troopers of the SS, or Schutzstaffel, the Nazi unit that included combat troops, bodyguards for Adolf Hitler and guards for concentration camps.