The Wintermarkt with 46 stalls, a small ice skating rink and over 400 Tannenbaums opened this past weekend at the Munich Airport. As we’ve written before, Christmas markets in the Munich area are usually called Christkindlmarkt or Weihnachtsmarkt, not so at the airport in Munich. There the market is named “Wintermarkt” since 2006. And that’s a problem for some now, at least for some 15.000 that commented at the Airport’s Facebook page.

The Anonymous.Kollektive, which BTW has nothing to do with the Anonymous hackers and has right-wing views regarding refugees and other themes (they are also Pegida supporters), encouraged their fans to comment on the “fact” that “Germans are being discriminated against within their own homeland.” They explained, “The Airport Munich has made a ‘Wintermarkt’ instead of using the traditional German terms of ‘Christkindlmarkt’ or ‘Weihnachtsmarkt’.” An initiative against the construction of a third runway at the airport has also jumped on the wagon and social media hell broke loose this past Friday.

The officials from Flughafen München GmbH (FMG), the operator of the airport, had to remove hundreds of comments from “concerned citizens” for being offensive and virulent. They claim that the market isn’t a classic Weihnatsmarkt because it begins before the first Advent and end after Christmas (on December 27), but their old and new opponents smell a conspiracy.