{"id":106842,"date":"2023-09-14T17:05:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T15:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=106842"},"modified":"2023-09-09T12:41:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T10:41:53","slug":"10-05-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=106842","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Catastrophic\u2019: Top German Official Combating Antisemitism Attacks Decision to Allow Bavarian Deputy PM to Remain in Office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>\u2018Catastrophic\u2019: Top German Official Combating Antisemitism Attacks Decision to Allow Bavarian Deputy PM to Remain in Office<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ben Cohen<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Election posters in the German state of Bavaria promoting deputy premier Hubert Aiwanger, who is accused of writing an antisemitic leaflet demeaning the Holocaust while a schoolboy. Photo: Reuters\/Frank Hoermann<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The German federal government\u2019s top official tasked with combating antisemitism has strongly criticized the decision of Bavaria\u2019s prime minister to allow his deputy \u2014 accused of authoring and distributing a leaflet demeaning the Holocaust<\/a> while a schoolboy \u2014 to remain in office.<\/span><\/p>\n

Felix Klein \u2014 the federal government\u2019s commissioner for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism \u2014 warned that the decision of Markus S\u00f6der<\/a>, the prime minister of the southern state of Bavaria, to permit his deputy Hubert Aiwanger to stay in his post could result in \u201ccatastrophic consequences\u201d for the ongoing tasks of combating Jew-hatred and commemorating the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Prime Minister S\u00f6der\u2019s decision to leave Mr. Aiwanger in office, the Bavarian state government should not return to the political agenda,\u201d Klein told German media outlets on Monday. \u201cThe matter has damaged the fight against antisemitism in our country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A report in the the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) <\/em>news outlet ten days ago claimed that Aiwanger was behind a typewritten leaflet mocking the Holocaust distributed at the Burkhart Gymnasium in the town of Mallersdorf-Pfaffenberg in 1987, when he was 17. According to the SZ<\/em>, members of staff and former students at the school confirmed that Aiwanger had been summoned before a school disciplinary committee over the leaflet and was sanctioned as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n

The leaflet parodied national history competitions through demeaning references to the Holocaust. For example, the \u201cprize\u201d for the best answer to the question \u201cWho is the greatest traitor to the fatherland?\u201d was \u201ca complimentary flight through the chimney at Auschwitz.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar \u201cprizes\u201d were offered for answers to other questions, among them a \u201clifelong stay in a mass grave,\u201d \u201ca free shot in the back of the neck,\u201d \u201ca ticket \u2026 to the entertainment quarter Auschwitz,\u201d and a \u201cnight\u2019s stay in the Gestapo cellar, then a trip to Dachau.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Aiwanger furiously denied being the author of the leaflet, for which his brother Helmut later claimed responsibility. However, Jewish leaders and German politicians across the spectrum were unimpressed by his denial, pointing to the presence of copies of the leaflet in his school bag. As the scandal intensified, former schoolmates of Aiwanger\u2019s gave interviews in which they accused the deputy prime minister, now 52, of delivering Hitler salutes, imitating Hitler\u2019s speeches, and cracking antisemitic and racist jokes.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a hastily organized press conference on Sunday, S\u00f6der \u2014 who faces state parliamentary elections on Oct. 8 \u2014 confirmed that he had opted against firing Aiwanger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know not everyone will like my decision, and others will have residual doubts. But I stress again, this result is the outcome of a fair and orderly process,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

S\u00f6der nonetheless criticized Aiwanger for his handling of the controversy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo first dispute everything, then partly admit some things, some of the contradictions, this has not increased his credibility in the past week,\u201d S\u00f6der said. However, given that the leaflet was published 35 years ago, that there was no evidence of Hubert Aiwanger\u2019s authorship, and that Aiwanger had not made any antisemitic statements since then, \u201cin my opinion, dismissal from office would not be proportionate,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLate, and in my view not too late, there was a clear apology and clear distancing of himself from the comments. This was right and necessary,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Separately, Aiwanger told the newspaper Bild <\/em>that he saw \u201cno reason whatsoever to resign or to be released from office.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Klein countered by saying that Aiwanger should have resigned because of \u201cinsufficient information about his connection to the antisemitic hate leaflet and his statement that the Shoah was used here for party political purposes.\u201d Last week, Aiwanger complained that the scandal<\/a> was \u201cnow being used in a political campaign against me and my party.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Klein expressed concern that the scandal would allow party political considerations to compromise the struggle against antisemitism<\/a> and the commemoration of the Holocaust. In 2022, the German authorities registered about 2,500 antisemitic incidents \u2014 including a record number that involved extreme violence<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018Catastrophic\u2019: Top German Official Combating Antisemitism Attacks Decision to Allow Bavarian Deputy PM to Remain in Office Ben Cohen Election posters in the German state of Bavaria promoting deputy premier Hubert Aiwanger, who is accused of writing an antisemitic leaflet demeaning the Holocaust while a schoolboy. Photo: Reuters\/Frank Hoermann The German federal government\u2019s top official […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106842"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106958,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106842\/revisions\/106958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}