Nazis against Nazis – Germany’s most involuntary charity walk
ZDK Gesellschaft Demokratische Kultur gGmbH
Issue 36 | October 2015
Agency
Grabarz und Partner, GGH Lowe
Creative Team
Idea: Philipp Schwartz, Fabian Wichmann Chief Creative Officers: Florian Grimm, Ralf Heuel Creative Directors: Boris Grunwald, Jan Wiendieck Strategy: Philipp Schwartz Concept: Ina Bach, Philipp Schwartz Art: Yasemin Boyraz, Fiete Lühn, Anne-Grit Maier Account Manager: Ina Bach Online Project Management: Miriam Mückner Copy: Matthäus Bauer, Alina Meisenbach, Michael Martin Online Concept: Ulrich Erdmann Web-Development: Jens Gardeler Screen Design: Robert Stoof Interactive Technical Director: Steffen Zörnig Print Production: Kai Struwe Motion Design: Michael Sturm DOP: Martin Kaeswurm Cutter: Mark Broszeit Camera Assistant: Leon Winkler
Production Team
Film Production: 27 Kilometer Entertainment GmbH Sound design: Studio Funk GmbH Co. KG Music: ROBA Production Music
Date
April 2015
Background
Right-wing extremism was still a predominant problem in Germany. For 15 years, the initiative EXIT-Deutschland had been successfully fighting against extremism by helping neo-Nazis who wanted to quit the far-right community. Yet, it received too little attention and too few donations.
Many cities in Germany fought against right-wing extremism too: neo-Nazis regularly subverted their right for demonstrations and overrun them.
Idea
During their annual Nazi march through the small town of Wunsiedel, the participating neo-Nazis were surprised and their demonstration was secretly turned around into something positive: a charity walk.
For every meter the neo-Nazis walked, € 10 went to EXIT-Deutschland.
So the neo-Nazis were left with two options: either to sponsor their own drop out or to abandon the march through Wunsiedel for the first time in 20 years.
Motivated by banners and bananas, the neo-Nazis went the full distance and raised € 10,000 for EXIT-Deutschland to help their own members abandon the movement.
With the help of a digital campaign, EXIT-Deutschland and the "Miracle of Wunsiedel" were celebrated in social and traditional media worldwide. And thanks to earned media, all of Germany now knew about the organization that was effectively tackling the problem of right-wing extremism: EXIT-Deutschland.
Results
- 24m people reached and 1m media equivalence by German TV and print coverage alone
- 279m impressions worldwide through social media in 64 countries
- 2.8m YouTube views for German and English version of the video reportage
- 155k unique visitors on microsite in just one week
- 21k visitors followed the march live on the microsite
- 4.7m Facebook post impressions in one week
- 10k EUR additional donations on top of the 10k raised.