A political bombshell has exploded in Germany less than six weeks before regional elections in the prosperous country of Bavaria, the second most populous in the country. Markus Söder – the charismatic Bavarian president and leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of the CDU Christian Democrats – faces an unexpected crisis that strikes a very sensitive chord in the country responsible for the Shoah. Its vice president and finance minister, Hubert Aiwanger, leader of the Free Voters (Freie Wähler) party, is accused of anti-Semitism. His position, and with it the agreement between the two formations to continue governing together as they have done since 2018, hangs by a thread.
A pamphlet written during the 1987-88 academic year, when Aiwanger was 17 years old and studying at the institute, more than 35 years ago, has put Söder’s main ally on the ropes to stay in power and, perhaps, opt for the conservative candidacy for chancellor in the next federal elections, in 2025. According to over the weekend the Munich newspaper revealed Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Aiwanger’s teachers found in his backpack a typewritten sheet with anti-Semitic content and glorification of Nazism. The 52-year-old politician has denied being its author, first in writing and this Thursday in a brief appearance without questions before the media. He assures that there is a “political campaign” against him to remove him from power. He is not considering resigning.
Aiwanger is the leader in Bavaria of the Free Voters party, with which Söder has governed in a relatively peaceful coalition since the last elections – the länder Germans hold elections every five years. It is a formation that is located more to the right than the CSU, sister party of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that only appears in Bavaria and has governed this region without interruption for more than six decades. Aiwanger was not known for anti-Semitic statements or ideas, but on more than one occasion he had come close to the typical rhetoric of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), with populist and nationalist phrases such as “recover our country”.
The defendant himself has described as “disgusting” the content of the pamphlet, which recounts a fictitious contest to determine who is “the greatest traitor to the country.” The first prize for the winner is “a free flight through the chimney at Auschwitz”, a macabre reference to the Nazi death camp where more than a million people perished, the vast majority Jews. The text, of which some copies have apparently been preserved – the newspaper claims to have accessed one – encourages contestants to appear “at the Dachau concentration camp for a job interview”. Dachau, a few kilometers northwest of Munich, is another of the unfortunate camps where the Nazis carried out their genocide.
Hitler’s speeches before the mirror
“I distance myself from the content. I have never been an anti-Semite nor have I hated people,” Aiwanger said Thursday in front of the press. “I don’t remember giving the Hitler salute or rehearsing Hitler’s speeches in front of the mirror,” he added, other behaviors of which witnesses cited by the press, former colleagues of his, have also accused him. He Sueddeutsche Zeitung it has also published that the CSU has known since at least 2008 that there were accusations of anti-Semitism against Aiwanger. That year, at a meeting of alumni of the Burkhart Institute, in the town of Mallersdor-Pfaffenberg, they came to light and a member of the CSU took note and alerted the party. The Free Voters had just entered the regional Parliament, where Aiwanger held a seat for the first time. His older brother, Helmut, has assured that it was he who wrote the text, but the media have published expert analysis who claim that the same typewriter was used as in Hubert’s thesis.
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The leader of this minority party, but crucial for the governance of Bavaria, has apologized and regretted that his youthful behavior “has hurt feelings.” However, he does not consider resigning. It will have to be Söder who dismisses him, something that many analysts take for granted in Munich. When will he do it? When he suits you, they answer to themselves.
The Bavarian Prime Minister has asked his number two in the Government and has required him to respond in writing to a questionnaire with 25 questions, but has not set a time limit. This gives a wide margin to decide how to proceed before the elections get even closer, which are held on October 8.
The Free Voters would get around 13% or 14% of the votes, according to the latest polls, prior to the outbreak of the scandal. Söder has assured that he wants to repeat the coalition, among other things because it would be very difficult for him to agree with Los Verdes, the other party that would allow him to add. Many of his more conservative voters are also terrified of environmentalists, whom they consider too left-wing, and would penalize an alliance with them. So the conservative CSU would be in for a bad time if Aiwanger’s party collapsed in October. Although it maintains an overwhelming supremacy in voting intentions (39%), Söder’s party is far from the absolute majority and its historical figures, which were well over 50%. The Greens could get 14%; the extreme right of AfD, 13%; the Social Democrats of the SPD, 9%; and the liberals of the FDP, 4% (a percentage that would put them out of the chamber).
The Bavarian elections will have the rest of the country in suspense, which is in a difficult political moment: the tripartite led by the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz is in low popularity hours, while the AfD would obtain, according to the polls, more than 20% of the votes if there were federal elections (scheduled in principle for 2025). Next year three key elections are held in the eastern German states where the far-right has the largest electoral base and the democratic parties, especially the center-right CDU and CSU, are considering how to respond to the challenge. It remains to be seen if they will slide down the slope of radical right-wing populism or if they will continue looking at the center, that container that allowed Angela Merkel to win so many elections.
The Aiwanger case has scandalized the political class, which has asked for explanations from both the person involved and Söder. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers for the economy and climate Robert Habeck (greens) and finance ministers Christian Lindner (liberals) condemned the contents of the pamphlet and demanded immediate clarifications during a press conference on Wednesday at Meseberg castle. , 70 kilometers north of Berlin, where they met. “In Germany there must never be a place for anti-Semitism,” Lindner said. Other SPD officials have called for Aiwanger’s resignation or for Söder to dismiss him as soon as possible and have criticized his attempt to present himself as a victim. On Thursday, during his appearance, he assured: “I have the impression that they want to end me politically and personally.”
“A responsible way to deal with the legacy of the worst crime ever committed by the Germans would be to proactively and fully clarify their own role in the creation and distribution of this Jew-hating pamphlet,” Felix Klein, Germany’s anti-Jewish commissioner, added on Friday. antisemitism.
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