After the leaflet affair
Aiwanger and the head of the Central Council speak out
September 22, 2023, 11:57 a.m
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Hubert Aiwanger and the President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, spoke out. Their conversation was objective, says Schuster. However, he made it clear to Aiwanger that he considered his handling of the leaflet affair to be problematic.
After the affair surrounding an anti-Semitic leaflet from Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger’s school days, the politician and the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, met for a discussion. “The conversation was objective,” said Schuster after the meeting in Munich.
“Above all, I see Hubert Aiwanger’s direct handling of the allegations against him as problematic. I told him that,” Schuster continued in the statement. Aiwanger explained: “We had an open and constructive conversation in a small circle and I also explained why I criticize the form and timing of certain media’s reporting against me.” No further information about the content of the conversation was initially released.
At the end of August, research by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” revealed that a leaflet with strongly anti-Semitic content had been found in the school bag of the then 17-year-old eleventh grader Aiwanger. Aiwanger denies authorship, his brother Helmut admitted to having written the pamphlet. The politician then criticized the media reporting and described himself as the victim of a smear campaign.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder did not comply with the demand for Aiwanger’s dismissal from the Bavarian cabinet. According to Söder, the removal of the Free Voters party leader from government office would not have been proportionate. The Prime Minister and CSU party leader instead reiterated his intention to continue the government coalition with Aiwanger’s Free Voters after the state elections on October 8th.