The Mitropa Cup 2024 starts this Wednesday in Apolda The event will be played from 15-23 February at the local city hall The event is played in Open and Women’s sections separately with participation of 10 federations: Austria Slovenia and Switzerland. The Championships are played in 9 rounds with time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves with 30 seconds increment for each move from move one The top-seeded team in the Open section is Germany (Rating average of 2636) with GM Matthias Bluebaum (Germany and GM Frederik Svane (Germany 2618) in the team The team of Italy is second on the starting list with an average rating of 2511 while Austria and Switzerland have teams with an average rating of 2479 German Women’s Team headlines the Women’s championship with an average rating of 2309 and WGM Josefine Heinemann (Germany FM Lare Schulze (Germany 2308) and WIM Kateryna Dolzhykova (Germany Hungary is seeded second with an average rating of 2241 and Italy is the third seed with rating average of 2216 Starting list of players and teams compositions can be found here Live games and detailed information about the event are available on the official website The Mitropa Cup is the annual team chess tournament for national teams from Central Europe The traditional team event this year brings together 10 nations competing against each other in an Open and a Women section on 4 boards each PLASA Media Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 4111709 - VAT Number GB 762 5913 14PLASA Media Ltd Share on FacebookShare on X (formerly Twitter)Share on PinterestShare on LinkedInThe Rapid City Fire Department has a few more firefighters around this week, but these firefighters have a different uniform. Ryan Nelson is a medic and firefighter at the Rapid City Fire Department and visited their sister station in Apolda last year. "So when we went to Germany last September, they hosted us and we stayed in their basements or one of their spare bedrooms. So it's the same thing with us. We take them, and in the mornings we meet at a meeting place and go to the days activities. They basically become a member of our family for the week we are here," says Nelson. Nelson says its basically like staying with your friends, just from across the world, and this year it was Rapid City's turn to host. In Germany, firefighters can start training at a very young age and work all the way up to be a master firefighter. Silvio Buschmann is here with his family and his 6-year-old son who is already a junior fireman. Buschmann says he teaches junior firefighters in Apolda and is excited to return to Rapid City. "I like the people in Rapid City and the friends from the Rapid City Fire Department", says Buschmann. While Buschmann has been here twice, the exchange has been going on for 19 years. It all started with six firefighters traveling to Apolda, including retired Rapid City firefighter, Daniel Ladenburger. "In 2000, a students parents came over from Apolda and brought a fire helmet to exchange, so when they went back they took a Rapid City helmet. So my wife and I thought this would be fun, and that's where it started and that's what its come to now," says Ladenburger. Right-wing activists at a demonstration in Chemnitz in September GERMANY—On a recent sunny October afternoon a vast stage stood beside a cluster of tents and porta-potties awaiting the arrival of some 5,000 attendees It could have been the site of a music festival practically anywhere in Europe “Rock Against Foreign Inundation,” a sort of Woodstock for neo-Nazis billed as one of the largest festivals held by Europe’s resurgent far right I could see the white memorial tower of the Buchenwald concentration camp gleaming from a hilltop in the distance Germany is experiencing a wave of nativist populism sparked by the arrival of 1 million asylum seekers in 2015 that movement propelled the right-wing Alternative for Germany party into Parliament and it has stoked a heated debate over migrants even as the number of newcomers has dropped riots ripped through the east German towns of Chemnitz and Köthen after two local killings Mobs attacked bystanders who looked like foreigners; some raised Hitler salutes The images splashed on television screens shocked Germany into a collective bout of soul-searching there has been something of a renaissance of neo-Nazi culture in German states like Thuringia Only 3 percent of Germany’s population live in Thuringia; yet by some estimates it hosts around a third of the country’s far-right concerts This has thrust local authorities into a pitched battle to clamp down on this flourishing far-right scene placing Thuringia at the center of a conflict between Germany’s embrace of free expression and the fear that some of these expressions are posing a threat to its democracy That conflict played out in spectacular fashion last weekend— from a back-and-forth struggle in the courts to street skirmishes and police helicopters in a tiny Thuringian town Read: Fighting the far-right and neo-Nazi resurgence in Germany Other local leaders I spoke with complained that for years Thuringia ignored the neo-Nazi scene because its events were small and protected by free-speech laws Thuringia was hosting around 30 far-right concerts a year the state had hosted at least 60; Christoph Lammert take the form of a dozen people with an acoustic guitar gathered at a bar But several annual rechtsrock events now draw thousands of people “The general Nazi scene is still rather small but they’re breaking more into the general public’s awareness,” Lammert said “They’re taking some of their arguments into the mainstream.” 2017’s Rock Gegen Überfremdung in Thuringia was organized by Turonen a controversial network monitored by German intelligence Among the bands scheduled to play were Gigi & Die Braunen Stadtmusikanten or “Gigi and the Brown Town Musicians,” a reference to the Nazi paramilitary or “The Lunikoff Conspiracy.” Its songs include lyrics like: We love our country But just a few hours before this year’s Rock Gegen Überfremdung was set to begin local authorities won a court battle that effectively blocked concertgoers from the site This marked the second time since August that the state had managed to block a location set up for the event or police milling around the empty concert grounds looked relieved: This time the rechtsrock organizers had adapted to their struggle with authorities and had preemptively registered an alternate site Apolda has struggled economically since reunification in the 1990s But it still boasts an idyllic main square complete with a brightly painted old town hall and an antique bell that rings on the hour cordons of police surrounding the Marktplatz began admitting several hundred concertgoers They wore sweatshirts bearing slogans like Adolf was great and black—a nod to the former colors of both Germany’s Nazi and imperial flags scattered after the sudden location switch a truck hauling a portable stage rolled in to loud cheers a speaker addressed the crowd: “Music is an important weapon against the people who want to tell us that we’re in the wrong What happened in Köthen and Chemnitz shows we are right—and that we have the right,” he said “I won’t tell you the rest,” the speaker said “Because that’s against the law.” A heavy-metal band followed of which the only discernible bits were lines like “all this scum” and “shit on your grave.” We are doing this in the middle of a town,” one of the concertgoers said He told me he had come all the way from the Czech Republic this would never be allowed … We do our gatherings somewhere secret.” Attendees at these events manage to skirt legal bans on direct references or symbols relating to Adolf Hitler and National Socialism a reference to the Third Reich’s rule from 1933 to 1945 and national!”—just about the closest you can get to cheering for National Socialism without defying the constitution a man in his mid-30s and covered up to his neck in red and black tattoos told me these concerts were an opportunity to express his resentment toward the state “It’s not possible to change anything in Germany with the elections we have,” he told me Read: The leader of Germany’s rising right speaks out. that night only some 700 of the most determined concertgoers arrived in Apolda after the location switch Thuringia’s silver-haired interior minister he insisted that even if the sight of neo-Nazis in a town square was shocking it was better to have a smaller crowd rather than allowing several thousand to amass more freely for hours on the nearby field “They weren’t able to sell their drinks and their food a lot of beer that they paid for and couldn’t sell … It’s not a 100 percent victory it was clear that an 80 percent victory did not feel like nearly enough for some locals told me she was followed the previous night by drunken concertgoers She shook off her hoodie to show her blonde hair and raced to a friend’s home “I don’t understand why they didn’t just let these people do their concert in a field somewhere “The situation here with the neo-Nazis already worried me Hours before day two of Rock Gegen Überfremdung was scheduled to kick off Gjura and other locals were busy setting up Autumn Fest in the Marktplatz Autumn Fest was a previously scheduled celebration with music but when local leaders realized their square had been registered for the rechstrock concert they hastily transformed it into a campaign to stall the neo-Nazi gathering The plan was to keep the festival going as late as possible until courts legally mandated them to hand over the square to concert organizers The courts had ruled against a last-minute petition from Apolda’s officials to cancel the concert on the grounds that the bands were inciting violence and therefore should not be protected by free speech “We are still just reacting to what they do I want to be the ones acting and blocking their events,” Rüdiger Eisenbrand which are allowing this to happen in the market center of a town?” This latest struggle with the courts reflects a growing debate over how the state should interpret free-speech laws when it comes to extremist views—and also over the laws themselves “We need to make some changes to the law,” Cristoph Victor It is the only way to protect our democracy.” the organizers unfurled a giant banner reading For an open and democratic Apolda The smell of grilling bratwurst wafted through the crowd as children drew rainbow hearts with sidewalk chalk and played with hula hoops while their parents danced awkwardly to Manfred Mann’s cover of “Blinded by the Light.” At the edge of the square as right-wing concertgoers massed along a barrier erected between the two sides—drinking As the jeers on the edges of the square grew louder and Syrian refugees playing soccer at the festival head home Townspeople preparing to hand over the square sang hymns; some teared up But the boom of the metal bands striking their opening chords mixed with the shrill whistles blown by antifa protesters bottles began to whizz overhead as angry—and very drunk—concertgoers clashed with the police Before the concert could even really begin Many of us began to choke on the pepper spray the police had sprayed into some angry rechtrockers’ faces shining beams overhead for massive columns of police to break up the crowd Cheers erupted among the antifa protesters watching drunken far-right concertgoers self-destruct But as one organizer announced the concert’s end he dropped an angry warning: “Later you will wish we had only made music.” Eisenbrand looked quiet and dazed as he shrugged off congratulatory salutations but there would be many more ahead—if not for his town “This wasn’t a win because of something we accomplished,” he said “Now they’re only going to become more angry Read: The rise of antifa The mayor asked me if I knew the story of the hedgehog and the hare, a typically gruesome Brothers Grimm fairy tale in which a confident hare agrees to race against the hedgehog, thinking it an easy victory. But the hedgehog conspires with his wife to trick the hare by staking out both ends of the field, thus always appearing to be in the lead. Eventually, the hare runs so much, he bleeds to death and dies. Eisenbrand smiled bitterly: “I feel we are like that hare. We just keep on running.” Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Far-right supporters throw bottles and rocks in fierce clashes before authorities cancel event in Thuringia I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice German police shut down a neo-Nazi rock concert after several officers were injured by people hurling missiles at them More than 800 people are thought to have attended the far-right event on Saturday which was being staged in Apolda in the central state of Thuringia A further 500 people also attended a counter protest in the town holding vigils and attending a late-night church service The concert had been billed by organisers as the “Rock against Überfremdung”, a German-language term that translates roughly as “over foreignisation” and is used to describe excess immigration Officers had to use pepper spray and batons to subdue the crowd after a group of people attending the far-right event tried to break through a police cordon Eight officers were “slightly” injured after those attending the concert threw bottles and rocks at them during a series of skirmishes The violence forced police into shutting down the concert early before organisers also called an end to the gathering Far-right activists chanted “you wish we had only made music,” after clashes with police, according to local news outlet MDR Thuringen Thuringia has long been a base for neo-Nazi concerts and gatherings within Germany Efforts to ban the most recent concert failed after it simply moved to another venue when it was blocked from using its initial site In 2017, more than 6,000 neo-Nazis from across Europe attended a rock concert in the Thuringia town of Themar. The event passed largely without incident, with most of the 20 offences recorded by police involving attendees wearing the symbols of banned organisations. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker A video of a fallen tree leaning on a 110,000-volt power line The video was filmed in a forested area near a horse paddock between the municipalities of Frankendorf and Kapellendorf in the central German state of Thuringia The high-voltage line reportedly served the whole town of Apolda Members of the Apolda volunteer fire department and the Umpferstedt fire department secured the surrounding area The power was then turned off at the network control center in Erfurt to make it safe for them to approach the tree and downed electrical line The tree continued to burn for a while after it hit the power line and eventually fell to the ground Firefighters then cut up the burned tree and put out what was left of the fire The video provides 7 seconds of footage showing the tree getting repeatedly zapped with rapid bursts of electricity making it look like a long lightning bolt stuck in a never-ending loop A loud popping sound can be heard with each zap creating what some on social media have described as a musical “beat.” the video on the Apolda fire station’s official Facebook page had been viewed more than 1.6 million times Electricity network expert Martin Schreiber told Bild that the tree looked the way it did “because the roots were still in the swampy damp earth,” and this caused “a lot of short circuits that look like small lightning bolts.” He added that just being close to the tree with the electricity coursing through it would be enough to kill a person “Getting closer than one meter [3 feet] would have been enough,” he said The popping sounds and flickering were attributed to the high resistance of the tree Damage sustained by the downed power line was estimated to reach 6,000 euros ($6,815) Edited by Siân Speakman and Kristen Butler A 90-year-old man was accidentally forgotten in a church in the German state of Thuringia on Saturday he was rescued when he found the bell ringer A 90-year-old man accidentally locked in a church in Apolda in the German state of Thuringia made himself known in the middle of the night on Sunday by ringing the bells After hours of searching inside the church the senior citizen found the bells at around 3.15 a.m The unusual timing of the bell ringing surprised the shift manager of the local police station The officers heard the trapped man's voice through the door and made contact with the priest The 90-year-old was then returned unharmed to his retirement home in Apolda from where he had already been reported missing on Saturday evening Six police cars had already searched the area around the church and other contact points for him that evening in vain following the report the man had gone to an event in the church on Saturday evening with his walking frame He then said that he was accidentally locked in and was left helpless It was only after a long search that he found the bell operator and used it to raise the alarm.