Far-right activists demonstrate to commemorate the suicide of Germany's former Deputy Fuehrer Rudolph Hess 30 years ago, in Berlin, Germany August 19, 2017.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - Anti-fascist activists gathered in the Berlin suburb of Spandau on Saturday to protest against a vigil by about 250 neo-Nazis commemorating the 30th anniversary of the death of Nazi convict Rudolf Hess.
The neo-Nazis planned a march from the suburb's station to the former Spandau Prison where Hess, an early ally of Germany's wartime dictator Adolf Hitler, served out the life sentence he was handed down at the post-war Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Far-right activists held up banners reading "I regret nothing" and hoisted the red, white and black flag of Hitler's Third Reich as about 1,000 police looked on.
Neo-Nazis commemorate the 1987 prison suicide of Hitler's one-time deputy every year, but this gathering has drawn more attention after a far-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia this month that led to the death of a young woman and drew international criticism.
Many anti-fascist protesters said the vigil in Germany should have been barred.
Far-right activists demonstrate to commemorate the suicide of Germany's former Deputy Fuehrer Rudolph Hess 30 years ago, in Berlin, Germany August 19, 2017.
"It's appalling that in the year 2017, Nazis can openly go on the streets for this deputy of Hitler," said Gerhard Sattler, a protester. "This is impossible. The whole of German society must stand up against this."
The crimes of the wartime regime are a matter of great sensitivity in Germany, where symbols of the Nazi regime, such as the swastika flag, are banned and where education about the dangers of totalitarianism and racial politics are a staple of the school curriculum.
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