Imagine that you live in a small town and everyone around you is neo-Nazis except you. The married couple Birgit and Horst Lohmeyer can report how you feel then. 20 years ago they had enough of big city life and moved into an old estate in the idyll of northwest Mecklenburg.
The town where they landed is called Jamel, has 38 residents and is now even known nationally as a “Nazi village”. People with extreme right-wing views, led by the convicted neo-Nazi Sven Krüger, have strategically bought houses here and are now determining what happens in the village. Only the Lohmeyers, who have been following this entire development, are still disturbing. Also because they defend themselves against the conditions.
The documentary “Jamel – Loud Resistance” by Martin Groß, which will be available in the ARD media library from November 20th, tells how they do this. 17 years ago, the Lohmeyers held their first anti-right festival on their property called “Jamel rocks the Förster”. At first only a few visitors came, but a signal was set. Even though their car tires were repeatedly slashed, the Lohmeyers stayed.
Nine years ago their barn burned down – arson, the perpetrators were never identified. When the festival took place shortly afterwards and now even more so, the Toten Hosen appeared as surprise guests and their anti-fascist song “Sascha” was on the set list.
© SWR/Labo M/Andreas Hornoff
Since then, the festival in the Nazi village has been a big deal. The Doctors, Herbert Grönemeyer, just about every German-speaking act that is willing to take a stand for anti-fascism has already performed here. This year even the Federal Commissioner for Culture, Claudia Roth, came by. Also to be shown the infamous signpost in the village, which shows how far it is from Jamel to Braunau, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
Imperial flags in the gardens
One could now dismiss Jamel as an extreme isolated case, but it’s not quite that simple. Director Groß shows that there are more and more attempts to found more Jamels in Germany. He also finds imperial flags in the gardens in other communities in Germany. The neo-Nazis’ concept of becoming the dominant force in village communities is called “national land seizure.” The goal is to establish so-called “national liberated zones”.
Since the Corona pandemic, this development has increased, particularly in rural areas in eastern and northern Germany. And not every one of these villages has someone like the Lohmeyers in the community.
This year the festival was in jeopardy
The documentation also makes it clear that the neo-Nazis are not satisfied with what they have already achieved. They are in charge in Jamel 363 days a year, except for two days when the dreaded anti-fascists and queers storm the place. And that’s why there is resistance from the village majority against this resistance from the left.
Groß accompanies the entire preparation for this year’s “Jamel rocks the forester”. And this is in jeopardy early on. Sven Krüger, the top village Nazi, now sits on the Gägelow local council for an obscure voting group called Heimatliebe. The community rents the Lohmeyers the open space where the immensely grown festival now takes place. And suddenly this local council finds flimsy reasons not to lease the site to the festival organizers this year.
Only with the help of a court can the two-day music event take place. But the impression remains: the neo-Nazis are now shaping the goings-on in small village communities in Germany. A local council member from Gägelow says in front of the camera that many people around him are of the opinion that the neo-Nazis in Jamel are actually quite peaceful. Once a year it would be the others who would cause trouble. “The left-wing autonomous ones are worse,” says a woman from a neighboring community.
“Jamel – Loud Resistance” is an important film that shows that a truly creepy abnormality like the Nazi village of Jamel must remain exactly that: an abnormality.