Disturbance prevails in Bavaria after the complaint of anti-Semitism against the Minister of Economy.
Senior German political officials today ordered the second-in-command of the Bavarian government to explain after the uproar caused by press reports that he had written an anti-Semitic pamphlet as a high school student.
“Anyone who mocks the victims of Auschwitz is barred from being held accountable in our country,” wrote Secretary of the Interior Nancy Feser on her platform X account. “It is imperative that full light be shed on these grave charges.”
The content of the text, published by the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, is “inhumane, completely despicable”, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Zender reacted to the same newspaper, in the middle of the campaign for the October 8 regional elections.
Hubert Ivanger, the regional government’s second-in-command and finance minister, should “just clear things up and explain them publicly,” Zender said.
In an investigation published today, the paper says that Hubert Ivanger, 52, and leader of the Free Voters party, which has allied with the Bavarian conservatives CSU, wrote an anti-Semitic pamphlet at the high school in the 1987-88 school year, which distributed at school.
What did the text say?
According to the publication, the leaflet was joking about the Auschwitz death camp, where historians estimate that the Nazis exterminated 1.1 million people, the vast majority of whom were Jews.
The text, published by the newspaper, was apparently a reaction to a competition organized on German history.
The editor calls for participation in a competition to determine “Who is the greatest traitor to the country”.
Candidates are invited to present themselves “at the Dachau concentration camp for a job interview”, it states, among other things. The first prize is “a free flight through the chimney of the Auschwitz camp.” Another is “living in a mass grave for life”.
The witnesses cited by the newspaper, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Ivanger had not denied authorship of the text at the time and had been “punished”, without being expelled from the high school.
Ivanger again denied today that he was the author of the leaflet. “I did not write this particular document and I find its content despicable and inhumane,” he said, through a spokesman. “I know the author of the document, he will explain himself,” he said.
If the accusations prove to be true, it will be “unacceptable” for Eiwanger to retain his post, Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner for combating anti-Semitism, told Sunday’s Bild newspaper. “Such inhumane comments about the victims of the Holocaust should not be uttered by anyone – not even young people,” Klein added. “This must be the consensus of all democratic parties.”
READ ALSO
