Retention of Bavarian leader accused of anti-Semitism sparks outrage

2023-09-03 13:43:17

In Bavaria, a state in southeastern Germany, the head of the regional government, Markus Söder, has taken the decision to maintain Hubert Aiwanger, number two in the regional government, Bavarian Minister of Economy and leader of the populist Free Voters party. at his post. However, the latter has been targeted for a week by accusations of anti-Semitism, arousing a lively national controversy for several days.

The 52-year-old man is accused of having written an anti-Semitic leaflet when he was a high school student, which he denies. “To oust him from his post would not be proportionate,” said Markus Söder on Sunday at a press conference. While the controversy has now lasted for more than a week, he admitted that his decision to retain Hubert Aiwanger “would not please everyone”.

“No proof that he wrote the leaflet”

But he argued “there is no evidence that he wrote the leaflet”. “In addition, the facts go back 35 years, no one today is who he was at the time,” he argued, inviting his number two to engage in dialogue with German Jewish associations. to explain and “repent”.

The person concerned had in fact begun by denying the accusations en bloc, then by acknowledging that the leaflet, found in his schoolbag at the time, did indeed exist but that it had been written by his brother. It was only later that he apologized for not having distanced himself from the contents of the leaflet soon enough.

The text, written in high school during the 1987-1988 school year, was apparently a reaction to a competition organized on German history aimed at determining “Who is the greatest traitor to the fatherland”.

In the leaflet, these “traitors” were invited to report “to the Dachau concentration camp for a job interview” and “a free flight through the chimney of the Auschwitz camp” or “a lifelong stay in a pauper’s grave “.