(JTA) — The deputy premier of Bavaria, the German state where Munich is located, is ensnared in a scandal that involves a Nazi pamphlet from his high school years and could affect multiple upcoming elections.
When he was 17, Hubert Aiwanger, now head of the populist Free Voters party, distributed a pamphlet that mocks victims of the Holocaust and was a “Nazi admirer,” according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, which cited several witnesses in its report this weekend.
Aiwanger said he did not write the pamphlet but admitted to having copies of it in his school bag at one point. He also described the contents of the pamphlet — which called Auschwitz an “entertainment quarter” and proposed a quiz titled “Who is the biggest traitor to the Fatherland?” — as “disgusting and inhumane.”
The episode is redounding negatively on Bavaria’s premier, Markus Söder, who leads a governing coalition that includes Aiwanger’s party. Söder called his deputy’s response to the controversy insufficient and, on Tuesday, demanded that Aiwanger answer a series of 25 questions about the affair and his views on antisemitism.
Söder’s political rivals have pounced on the incident. Chancellor Olaf Scholz threatened “political consequences” if the issue is not “cleared up comprehensively and immediately.”
Analysts say that Söder, a brash Donald Trump-like figure who heads Bavaria’s Christian Socialist Union party — which is slightly different than, but affiliated with, former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party — has ambitions to become the country’s chancellor, or head of government.
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