Residents in the German town of Ostritz wanted to keep a group of neo-Nazis from coming to town for a music festival, so they began buying up hundreds of crates of beer.
More than 1,000 gallons of beer were confiscated by police in the state of Saxony after a Dresden court banned the sale and possession of alcohol at the Shield and Sword Festival.
But the confiscation was not enough for residents in the town of about 2,600, who feared that the attendees would just show up to local grocery stores and buy their own alcohol.
So they started buying up the town’s supply.
“The plan was devised a week in advance. We wanted to dry the Nazis out. We thought, if an alcohol ban is coming, we’ll empty the shelves at the Penny [supermarket],” local activist Georg Salditt said.
“For us it’s important to send the message from Ostritz that there are people here who won’t tolerate this, who say ‘we have different values here, we’re setting an example, which is not the image of a far-right concert, which dominates the media coverage,’” a resident told local media.
The event still went on, with about 1,400 police showing up for a crowd of 500-600 fans. Officials say there were just a few minor incidents.
