Nazi music in the Zieschutz festival tent
Oktoberfest visitors in Saxony celebrate with Hitler salutes
September 25, 2023, 11:10 a.m
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On Saturday evening, Zieschütz near Bautzen invites you to his 5th Oktoberfest. The festival tent is well attended, the atmosphere is great – especially when “Erika” is played. Several visitors accompany the marching song from the Nazi era with the Hitler salute.
The Saxon police are checking a video of an Oktoberfest party in which the Hitler salute is shown several times. “We have secured your video and sent it to the responsible police department,” commented the Saxony police Recording on Platform X, where it was published late Sunday evening. At the same time, the police social media team makes it clear that they would have preferred a different approach: “The better way would have been to call the station directly,” they say. “A report about X always results in unnecessary delays.”
According to the information, the recording comes from the 5th Zieschutz Oktoberfest. The community near Bautzen in East Saxony invited people to the festival tent on Saturday. In the recording, the visitors are dancing Marching song “Erika”, which was composed around 1930 by Herms Niel. The songwriter joined the NSDAP in 1933 and became leading bandmaster in the Reich Music Platoon of the Reich Labor Service. Many of his marching songs were used for Nazi propaganda – a fact that also seems to be known in Zieschütz.
In the shot from the festival tent, several visitors dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes can be seen, not only singing along to the marching song, but also accompanying it extensively with the Hitler salute. In the foreground of the video, a young blonde woman raises her outstretched right arm upwards at an angle from her chest six times in time with the music. In the background, a young man shows a total of 14 Hitler salutes in the recording, which is only 16 seconds long.
The RTL/ntv verification team can confirm the authenticity and timeliness of the recording: The video has only been in circulation since Sunday. The marquee decoration matches other photos of the Oktoberfest party, which can be viewed on Instagram, among other places.