Queer Life | Pride in Bautzen: A Powerful Rainbow

Jonas Löschau was overjoyed. Two years ago, the queer activist and Green Party city councilor in Bautzen recalled, 350 people took to the streets at the first Christopher Street Day (CSD) in the eastern Saxon city. That Sunday afternoon, Löschau spoke at the opening of the third Bautzen CSD in front of the Maria und Martha Church to more than three times that number. Organizers later put the total number of participants at 4,300; the police spoke at just under 2,000. It was, Löschau said, a "really great sign" that so many people "took to the streets in solidarity with one another for queer life in rural areas."

The Pride in Bautzen is one of many this summer in Germany – and yet it is special. Since the extreme right-wing scene began mobilizing against queer events , intimidating and threatening them, nowhere has it been able to celebrate such success as at the second Pride in Bautzen. Last summer, a colorful Pride parade with 1,200 participants was followed by around 700 neo-Nazis. They marched along exactly the same demonstration route. There were verbal threats and physical attacks; a closing event even had to be canceled due to security concerns . Löschau later spoke of a "blueprint" for right-wing extremist mobilization against further Pride events. In the magazine of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung," the head of the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Dirk-Martin Christian, recently described the right-wing scene as having achieved a "worrying point victory" in light of the events in Bautzen.

Organizers, authorities, and the nationwide public were accordingly nervous about this year's event . The Bautzen district had restricted the right of assembly by general decree and, in addition to weapons, also prohibited, among other things, the wearing of black, uniformed clothing, which could have an "intimidating effect." Verbal and possibly physical altercations and a "confrontational assembly situation" were expected "with near certainty," the decree stated. Accordingly, a large police presence was deployed to separate the camps and prevent clashes. Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) also visited Bautzen to assess the situation for himself.

Fortunately, the feared confrontation didn't materialize, at least in the afternoon; the third Bautzen Pride parade turned out to be a successful party. Even in front of the Maria und Martha Church, from whose tower a rainbow flag hung, as well as in front of Bautzen Town Hall, there was exuberant dancing to live music. At a later interim rally, there was even a last-minute performance by the Chemnitz band Kraftclub, whose singer Tom Kummer told the participants that he would rather be at a party with them than "with those idiots over there."

"Pride parades in Berlin, Leipzig, Cologne – that's a party. This is a fight for the right to exist."

Georgine Kellermann trans activist

By this, he was referring to the right-wing extremists, who, with around 300 participants, brought out less than half as many as last year. The portal "Endstation Rechts" (Endstation Right) concluded that the events of 2024 had a significantly greater mobilizing effect on the CSD than on the right-wing extremist scene. However, it was still the largest anti-CSD protest of the season so far . The Nazis' high propensity for violence was also pointed out. In chants, they repeatedly threatened violence against CSD participants.

A Pride parade in the provinces is therefore never exclusively a party, unlike in major cities like Berlin, Cologne, or Leipzig, said Georgine Kellermann, journalist and trans activist, in Bautzen: "This is a fight for the right to exist." Kellermann spoke at an interim rally, along with Sophie Koch, SPD politician and Federal Government Commissioner for Queer Affairs, and Bautzen's CDU mayor, Karsten Vogt. Vogt called for tolerance towards different lifestyles, religions, and nationalities, but admitted: "Tolerance in our society is less pronounced than we think." Politicians from other parties also participated in the march, including Ines Schwerdtner, Anja Eichhorn, and Marco Böhme, the federal and two state leaders of the Left Party in Saxony.

Thanks to such nationwide support, the Bautzen organizers, led by Jonas Löschau, were able to look back on a successful afternoon. A great many people were joining them "for visibility, diversity, and true equality," they explained while the march was still in progress, emphasizing: "Bautzen can be colorful, loud, and full of solidarity." The "Grandmas Against the Right Leipzig" summarized that the people in the East Saxon city had experienced "a great deal of solidarity and power" that afternoon. They added that they hoped "they will remember a lot of it here and keep it in their hearts."