The processing of the affair about Bavaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger and an anti-Semitic leaflet from school days is about to reach its decisive climax: Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder, CSU, wants to hold a press conference at short notice on Sunday morning. The State Chancellery invited for 11 a.m., “due to current events”, as the invitation said. Söder’s decision is eagerly awaited as to whether or not he will dismiss the Minister for Economic Affairs a month before the state elections on October 8th.
The free voter boss had recently had to answer Söder’s extensive list of questions about the allegations in writing. After that he would make a final assessment, Söder had announced in advance.
Are you interested in politics? Subscribe to our free capital city newsletter and read the most important information of the week, selected for you by our Berlin political experts!
New allegations had been made against Aiwanger for a week. (You can read about the trials and tribulations of the past few days here) On Saturday a week ago, he initially denied in writing that he had written an anti-Semitic leaflet when he was at school, which the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” had reported on. At the same time, however, he admitted that “one or a few copies” were found in his school bag. Shortly thereafter, Aiwanger’s older brother claimed to have written the pamphlet.
Aiwanger apologized publicly for the first time on Thursday. With regard to the allegations, he stuck to previous statements – in particular that he did not write the leaflet and that he could not remember showing the Hitler salute as a schoolboy. On X (formerly Twitter), he also dismissed the accusation that he had Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in his school bag as “nonsense”. He either did not comment on other allegations or said that he could neither deny nor confirm them from his memory.
At the same time, the head of the Free Voters went on the counterattack, complaining about a political campaign against him and his party – which immediately brought him new allegations, for example from the Central Council of Jews.
