The Leinefelde-Worbis State Garden Show has severed its sponsorship with a local restaurant owner after he posted a queerphobic hate comment that carried Nazi references. He wrote on Instagram after the attack on Berlin’s CSD: “Off to Auschwitz and away with you” (with an extra s and spaces, apparently to dodge filters). He left the comment under a video that described the CSD’s evacuation from a participant’s point of view. The Islamist-motivated attack left one woman dead and 31 people injured.
The State Garden Show explained on Tuesday that the existing sponsorship with the entrepreneur would be terminated with immediate effect. The statements were described as “unbearable and unacceptable” — it is shocking how “careless” such remarks are publicly today and how little some people engage with or learn from history. A state garden show stands for openness and hospitality and welcomes all people — “no matter where they come from and no matter how they live their lives and shape their partnerships.” At the same time, organizers condemned the attack, offered condolences to the families of the deceased, and wished the victims a swift recovery.
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Instagram / dailydaniel0 | Zu diesem Reel von Daniel Tonnar Leyva war der Beitrag verfasst worden
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The innkeeper, whose tavern has hosted AfD events on multiple occasions, deleted the post and soon issued a public apology. In it, he described his statement as “inhumane and discriminatory.” He apologized to queer people, to Jews and Holocaust survivors and their families. He also said he would seek “professional help” to address his behavior. The responsibility for the comment lay solely with him.
The Holocaust survivors will not accept your apology
Strong criticism came on Wednesday from the International Auschwitz Committee, which publicly rejected the apology. What was he apologizing for, asked Executive Vice President Christoph Heubner in an open letter. “You wrote exactly what you think.” Whoever speaks of Auschwitz in such terms knows “what happened there.” Heubner suggested the innkeeper receives support from his circle as well as from people on social networks “who cheer your open and murderous words and welcome the haters in their midst.” “What kind of hate must live in your mind, and what darkness must live in your soul?” the letter continued. “‘Away with you’—what do you mean by that? Lock up for life, or send people to the gas chamber? A life unworthy of life: away with you!” The apology cannot be accepted: “You did not step on anyone’s foot, you threatened people with death and conjured up political conditions that would bring about a new Auschwitz.”
Investigations into the innkeeper—and into the CSD filmer
According to police, at least two criminal complaints were filed against the man. The public prosecutor’s office in Mühlhausen announced an investigation and is assessing whether the Facebook comment constitutes incitement to hatred or other offenses. It is notable that in 2002 a then-CDU councilman in Detmold was given a suspended sentence for saying that “the gays should be gassed, as the Jews were,” a man who reportedly later worked as a lawyer for AfD politician Björn Höcke, as reported by Welt editor Frederik Schindler.
The video the innkeeper commented on came from influencer, activist, actor, and event organizer Daniel Tonnar Leyva — who is also reportedly under investigation. According to a video, he had called the inn after the comment. “I was very unfair to my first employee. I unleashed all my frustration on her. I truly regret it.” A second employee told him, “He may have this opinion.” Leyva said this shocked him, because the remark is not simply an opinion. A separate investigation for coercion was opened after he released a clip of the phone call and urged the two employees to “close the place immediately and please resign.” Leyva, who told Focus about his CSD evening, says he reports legally relevant comments whenever he finds them and feels that nothing ever happens. In fact, after the attack, many hostile and inflammatory comments appeared on social media. TheColu.mn even had to restrict its Facebook comments on topics such as rainbow flags, which the social network often shows to queer-phobic circles.
