The incident

On the morning of 20 July 2026, ahead of the official commemoration of the failed 1944 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, Tobias Korenke, 61, attempted to remove a wreath laid by the AfD parliamentary group at the Bendlerblock memorial in Berlin. Korenke is a great-nephew of the theologian and resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a grandson of Rüdiger Schleicher, another member of the anti-Nazi resistance. A photographer from the German Press Agency (dpa) witnessed the scene and reported that security personnel intervened, leading to a scuffle in which the wreath was damaged. Robert von Steinau-Steinrück, chairman of the Stiftung 20. Juli 1944, later confirmed that no AfD politicians were involved in the physical altercation, only security staff.

“Many descendants, and I include myself, feel real fury when we see the AfD laying wreaths here. We will not accept this.”

Foundation and family reactions

The Stiftung 20. Juli 1944 issued a statement on Monday evening saying the annual AfD wreath-layings "deeply hurt many relatives of the women and men of the resistance." The foundation added that it "understands this outrage" and noted that much of what the AfD stands for "contradicts the convictions" for which the resistance fighters stood against the Nazi regime. The commemoration, the statement stressed, serves "exclusively the dignified remembrance of the victims and the resistance" and is "no place for party-political stagings or political confrontations." Von Steinau-Steinrück also used the occasion to call for overcoming divides, saying the opposition to Hitler had united people "who in normal political times probably would not have greeted each other on the street."

Karl Schenk Graf Stauffenberg, grandson of the plot's leader Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, told WELT TV that the AfD cannot be denied the right to lay a wreath. "That's what we democrats are for," he said, adding that people with different views must be heard. At the same time, he called it "quite horrible and quite disgusting" how the AfD misuses his grandfather's legacy "for its own purposes."

AfD's position

A spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group confirmed that the party had provided a wreath for the ceremony. Götz Frömming, head of the group's history working group, said the AfD is invited to these official commemorations as a party represented in the Bundestag. The spokesperson could not say conclusively whether any AfD members of parliament were present at the time of the scuffle.

The wider commemoration

The incident occurred before the main ceremony, which included a speech by Federal Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU). Prien said the resistance of 20 July and other groups reminds us that democracy is not sustained by institutions alone but "lives from an ethic of civic responsibility, from people who are willing to take responsibility for the community, even when it is uncomfortable." She warned against allowing people to turn away from democracy. Later in the afternoon, 240 Bundeswehr recruits were sworn in at the same site, the courtyard where Stauffenberg and three fellow conspirators were executed by firing squad on the evening of the failed coup.

The 20 July 1944 plot saw Wehrmacht officers led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg attempt to kill Hitler with a bomb and overthrow the Nazi regime. The attempt failed, and Stauffenberg was shot that same night. The Bendlerblock, now home to the German Defence Ministry, has since become the central site for annual remembrance.