People were blocked from entering a shopping mall with rainbow flags during Hamburg's CSD celebration. Other similar incidents suggest that 'Pride' symbols are increasingly met with hostility in Germany.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Hamburg on Saturday for the city's annual Christopher Street Day (CSD) Pride parade, but security forces at the Europa Passage shopping mall were apparently not feeling like allies.
The security service there reportedly turned away at least six people who were carrying Pride rainbow symbols at two entrances, or asked them to roll up their flags. Police were called several times by people who said they were discriminated against after being blocked from entry.
"After the last intervention of the police, the practice was stopped," a police spokesman later confirmed.
Similar incidents were also reported at the Wacken music festival over the weekend, suggesting a trend among certain private security services for targeting Pride symbols.
A year ago, Julia Klöckner, President of the Bundestag and a conservative party (CDU) politician, ordered that rainbow Pride flags be taken down within the parliament building, including in members of parliaments' own offices ahead of CSD celebrations in Berlin.
In Hamburg
Daniel Scheffler, who was blocked from entering the Europa Passage along with his group of friends, said he was "shocked" to see this kind of discrimination in his native city of Hamburg on the day of the CSD parade.
In a report by Hamburger Abendblatt he explained: "We wanted to go through a side entrance of the Europa Passage to cross it, and two from our group were stopped by security guards."
One of his friends had a Pride flag around his neck, and another had a poster which said, "not supporting love was never an option".
Sheffler said that the security guards claimed to be following orders from central management, saying such political symbols could make other customers feel "provoked".
The Europa Passage shopping centre is owned by ECE which is part of the Otto Group, which was represented at the CSD parade with its own truck.
The centre manager of the Europa Passage replied to an inquiry by the Abendblatt to say that "there was no instruction from management to ask visitors to cover or remove Pride flags."
He added that the Pride flags hoisted on the shopping centre stand for "our attitude and our self-image as an open, diverse and non-discriminatory house," and that management would be investigating individual events and holding "talks" with security if necessary.
Wacken Open Air
Similar incidents were described by attendees at the Wacken Open Air rock and metal festival, which also took place over the weekend. Posts by festival goers on Reddit detailed people being stopped by security for having Pride bandanas or similar rainbow patches and accessories.
One festival goer described having to remove a patch from his jacket which had the letters, "FCK AFD" because security guards told him it was "too political".
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In another post on the topic a user urged people who felt discriminated against by security to call the Wacken officials directly, suggesting that bans on Pride symbols were coming from the security force's own agenda, not the Wacken festival's official rules.
Meanwhile, some people commenting on the above post remarked that they felt there were more "unconstitutional tattoos and patches" seen in the festival grounds this year.
Pride flag politics
The rainbow flag, which is a common symbol for LGBTQ+ Pride, is hoisted on Germany's Reichstag (capital) building on May 17th each year, to mark the International Day Against Homophobia.
Under the previous traffic light government, which was led by the Social democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), the rainbow flag was also hoisted during Berlin's Pride weekend.
But under Germany's now conservative-led government, the Pride flag is not raised during Berlin's Pride celebrations, and has effectively been banned within the building -- as are other 'political symbols'.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz had defended Bundestag Preseident Klöckner's decision to not allow the Pride flag to be put up in parliament, saying, "The Bundestag is not a circus tent where any flag could be hoisted."
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