“I don’t think it’s very good”
Central Council of Jews disappointed with Aiwanger’s apology
9/2/2023 1:42 am
In the meantime, there has been an apology from the Bavarian Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger for an anti-Semitic inflammatory newspaper. For the Central Council of Jews, however, this is a bit thin. In addition, an important question remains.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany has expressed its disappointment at the way State Minister of Economics Hubert Aiwanger has dealt with the affair surrounding an anti-Semitic leaflet. “I don’t hope that anyone sees this as a role model,” said Central Council President Josef Schuster on ZDF’s “heute journal”. “What honestly shakes me the most is Aiwanger’s handling of these allegations, which have been around for a week now and which he himself knew in advance.”
He was very surprised that Aiwanger was “not able” to “immediately provide detailed explanations” when the article was published in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. He did understand Aiwanger’s later apology as meaning that he “apologized for the pamphlet and its content”. But the fact is that “this pamphlet was found in his backpack,” said Schuster. “He seems to have a connection to it. Because things rarely fly into a backpack all by themselves.”
perpetrator-victim reversal
Aiwanger’s statement in the “Welt” on Friday that the Shoah was being misused for party political purposes was clearly rejected by Schuster. From this sentence he hears a “victim-perpetrator reversal”, said the President of the Central Council. “I don’t think that’s very good.”
In a statement on Thursday, Aiwanger apologized for possible mistakes in his youth for the first time. His apologies apply “first and foremost to all the victims of the Nazi regime, their survivors and everyone involved in the valuable work of remembrance”. At the same time, in view of the allegations, he again spoke of a political campaign against him and his party.
Aiwanger rejects the allegation made in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” over the weekend that he wrote an anti-Semitic leaflet when he was at school in the 1980s. He acknowledged that specimens were found in his satchel, but denies being the author. His brother took responsibility for it at the weekend.