German town bans 'stumbling stone' memorials to Nazi victims

There has been a wave of criticism in Germany after the town of Heidenau, near Dresden in Saxony, decided to ban "stumbling stone" memorials to victims of the Nazis.

Germany's Education Minister Karin Prien told newspaper Bild that the ban was a "scandal".

Since the 1990s, many towns in countries across Europe, including in Germany and Austria, have embedded small brass plaques in the streets in memory of Jews and other victims of Nazi atrocities.

The plaques, called Stolpersteine in German, are often placed outside the houses where the victims used to live or work. They are frequently funded by donations.

But now councillors from the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party and the conservative CDU in Heidenau have voted to ban stumbling stones in their town.

The AfD in Saxony has been classified as extreme-right by German intelligence, a designation the party rejects.

The motion in the town council said that many citizens felt that this form of commemoration of Nazi victims was inappropriate.

Memorials should in future be placed at the city's Nordfriedhof cemetery to make it "impossible to step directly onto the memorial elements", the motion stated.