Anti-Semitic leaflet from the 1980s that could change the elections in Bavaria

In Bavaria, Germany’s largest federal state, in the south of the country, a few days ago there was a discussion about an anti-Semitic leaflet distributed in a secondary school in the 1980s: a few days later detection from the newspaper Süddeutsche ZeitungBavarian Vice-President and Economics Minister Hubert Ewanger admitted that when he was 17 years old he participated in the distribution of the leaflet which contained openly pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic contents.

Now many are calling for his resignation from the Bavarian government, even at the national level, and the case could have a major impact on the Bavarian state elections scheduled for October 8.

Disputed newsletter He appears As a somewhat bare page in which a mock contest called “Who is the greatest traitor to the motherland?” is described: Jews are presented as traitors and the first prize is “a free ride down the chimney of Auschwitz”, a reference to the concentration and extermination camp in Poland where more than a million people were murdered. During World War II, almost all of them were Jews.

Ewanger said he found the contents of the pamphlet “disgusting and inhumane”, and denied that he had written it, claiming that he only participated in its distribution at school when he had not yet reached the age of majority. Over the weekend, his brother Helmut Iwanger issued a statement identifying himself as the author of the post and distancing himself from its contents. there Süddeutsche Zeitung But at the same time he collected the testimonies of some former teachers at the school, who described 17-year-old Hubert Ewanger as an outspoken fan of Nazism, and confirmed that he himself was the author of the post.

The Social Democrats, who are in government nationwide but in opposition in Bavaria, called for Iwanger’s dismissal. German Chancellor Olaf Schultz also made a statement in which he spoke of the need for “political consequences” in the country. The case risks consequences not only for the upcoming elections in Bavaria, but also on a national level, given the importance of Bavarian politics for the whole of Germany.

And in Bavaria, Germany’s main centre-right party (the party led for years by Angela Merkel, the CDU) is now governed by a coalition led by the Christian Social Union, the local section of the CDU. In coalition with the CSU is the Free Voters (FW), a conservative party to the right of the CSU, active at the national level but above all in Bavaria, where its leader is precisely Hubert Ewanger.

The President of Bavaria, voiced by the CSU, is Markus Söder, who is known throughout Germany and is considered one of the main aspirants to the national leadership of the CDU, with ambitions to run for chancellor in the 2025 general election. Söder called for an extraordinary meeting of his coalition Government in Bavaria, in which Ewanger will have to answer some of his allies’ questions: What Söder decides to do with Ewanger and manage the case is likely to determine an important part of his political future.

Markus Soder and Hubert Iwanger sign a government contract to launch their coalition in 2018. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

At the moment, the CSU has a huge lead in the polls in Bavaria, with 39% of the vote: more than the 37 it got in 2018, but certainly lower than the results the party is used to in those parts, where it has ruled for decades. Practically indisputable. In recent years, the CSU consensus in Bavaria – as in the rest of the country – has been eroded in part by the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is why in 2018 the CSU chose to ally itself. with the Free Voters, who currently have between 12 and 14 percent.

The CSU considers an alliance with the AfD utterly impractical because of its extreme positions, and Söder and Ewanger have already announced that they will re-propose the same coalition that already governs Bavaria in this election: but all that happened before the issue got out. From the bulletin, and at the moment it is not possible to predict whether there will be consequences.