The decision of the Heidenau city council to no longer lay stumbling blocks in the Saxon city in the future continues to cause outrage. Federal Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) called for the decision to be withdrawn during a visit to Leipzig on Monday. “I hope that the city council will come to their senses and revise the decision.” The memory of the Holocaust and the fate of Jewish people belongs “in the middle of the cities and where they are visible and not on the edge or even in a cemetery.”
The city council of the Saxon city with almost 17,000 inhabitants decided on September 24th to build a central memorial for the victims of war and violence at the North Cemetery in Heidenau. At the same time, he decided: “Laying so-called ‘stumbling blocks’ in public streets and sidewalks will be rejected in the future.”
Stolpersteine are small square memorial plaques made of brass. As a rule, they are embedded on a concrete support in the pavement or pavement in front of the last freely chosen residential building of Jewish and other victims of the Nazi regime. The names of the people who lived there and were persecuted, expelled, deported or murdered by the National Socialists are engraved on them. A total of around 120,000 stumbling blocks have now been laid in many cities; they go back to a project by the artist Gunter Demnig.
In the case of Heidenau, the main criticism is that three city councilors from the CDU submitted the application together with the AfD and a representative of the Upper Elbe Citizens' Alliance for More Democracy (BOD). The decision in the city council was clear: 13 city councilors voted for the ban on laying stumbling blocks, only six voted against, and there was one abstention.
The majority situation in Heidenau's 22-seat city council is complicated, as in many East German municipalities. The two large factions CDU and AfD each have seven city councilors. There are also two city councilors from the BOD, two from the Left, one each from the SPD, the FDP, the right-wing extremist Free Saxony and the Heidenau citizens' initiative. The non-party mayor Conny Oertel, who belongs to the Heidenau citizens' initiative, is also entitled to vote. Several city councilors in the CDU and the AfD were also elected via the party list, but were not party members.
There is no clear demarcation between the CDU and the AfD in the Heidenau city council. The CDU politician Reno König, who was parliamentary group leader for 25 years, told the “Sächsische Zeitung” at the end of 2025 that it was clear to him and the CDU that “it is about Heidenau, and there is no firewall if there are sensible proposals”. Ultimately, there is no pressure to form a faction. The Heidenau AfD parliamentary group leader Daniel Barthel made a similar statement. “There was never a firewall here, thank God,” he said in an interview with the right-wing internet radio “Kontrafunk”.
But how did the decision about the stumbling blocks come about? According to Barthel, the AfD parliamentary group had already opposed the laying of a total of five stumbling blocks in Heidenau in 2019 and 2021, which were laid for the city's former mayor and a merchant family. The AfD wrote a new proposal last year. This apparently happened in response to the planned laying of seven more stumbling blocks by the Alternative Culture and Education Center (AKuBiZ) from Pirna.
In fact, there is an entry in the city council's information system from December 18, 2025, according to which city councilor Barthel "made an application to create a memorial site in the north cemetery". The AfD withdrew this application at the request of the CDU and Oberelbe Citizens' Alliance factions, writes Barthel on his group's Facebook page in a response to a query from the "taz". As a result of discussions, it was agreed that the citizens' alliance would “submit a corresponding application”.
René Kirsten from the Upper Elbe Citizens' Alliance for More Democracy (BOD) confirmed to the F.A.Z. this representation. They agreed on the matter, but they didn't want to leave the application to the AfD because then it would have been "put straight into the right corner." That is why the BOD agreed to submit the application because it was not a party. The alliance formulated the application and obtained the necessary signatures from the AfD and CDU.
In addition to Kirsten, five city councilors from the AfD and three CDU city councilors signed the application, namely the parliamentary group leader Cornelia Schmiedel and the city councilors Uwe Epler and Ralf Martin. On September 10th, the application was discussed in a closed session in the city council's building committee; five of the signatories sit on the eleven-person committee. The building committee “almost agreed” that other forms were needed as stumbling blocks in order to commemorate the victims of violence in a dignified way, Kirsten told the F.A.Z.
An event from November 2025 also shows the closeness between the AfD and the CDU in the city council. The month before, the left-wing politician Steffen Wolf was voted out of office as deputy mayor of the city council. CDU city councilor Uwe Epler surprisingly ran for the office - he was proposed by the AfD. Epler received 13 votes in favour, five against him and four abstentions. The AfD parliamentary group posted on Facebook on November 28, 2025 that they were pleased that “our election proposal” had “found broad, cross-party support in the city council”.
The decision not to lay any more stumbling blocks in Heidenau was made in a secret vote at the request of the AfD. The number of 13 votes can be understood. The total number of AfD city councilors, the three supporters from the CDU and one from the BOD already amount to eleven votes. The non-party mayor Oertel and the right-wing extremist city councilor of Free Saxony have also publicly stated that they will vote for the motion. However, this remains a guess since the election was secret.
However, it indicates that several CDU city councilors voted against the resolution, as the party says, or abstained. CDU parliamentary group leader Cornelia Schmiedel said that there had been long and detailed discussions in her group, that there were different opinions on the question of stumbling blocks and that there was therefore no obligation to make a decision.
