Alexander Gauland, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has described the Nazi era as a brief stain in Germany's otherwise grand history.



AfD politicians have often been accused of harboring Nazi-like views, but this latest comment has sparked a particularly angry response.

What Gauland said

Addressing the youth division of the AfD at a conference in Seebach, Thuringia, Gauland said:

"Only those who acknowledge history have the strength to shape the future."

"Hitler and the Nazis are just bird shit in more than 1,000 years of successful German history."

"Yes, we accept our responsibility for the 12 years … [but] we have a glorious history — and that, dear friends, lasted longer than the damn 12 years."

'Sinister vision'

CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told Die Welt: "Fifty million dead in World War II, the Holocaust, total war — and to call it all 'bird shit' is such a slap in the face of the victims and such a relativization of what happened in the name of Germany ... It is simply stunning that this is said by the leader of a supposedly civic party."

SPD Secretary General Lars Klingbeil told DW that Gauland had now dropped all facades. "This is a frightening trivialization of National Socialism. It is a disgrace that such people are sitting in the German Bundestag."

Marco Buschmann, parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the Funke Media Group: "Any politician who deliberately tries to minimize the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust gives an indication of how sinister the visions he has for Germany are."

The Greens' Katrin Göring-Eckardt called Gauland's comments a slap in the face to Holocaust survivors and their descendants and said they highlight the need to push back against a hate-filled minority.

AfD faction spokesman Christian Lüth responded on Twitter: "Bird shit is what I think of the Nazi era," if you take into account the 1,000-year-history of Germany.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know Christian Democratic Union (CDU) The CDU has traditionally been the main center-right party across Germany, but it shifted toward the center under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The party remains more fiscally and socially conservative compared to parties on the left. It supports membership of the EU and NATO, budgetary discipline at home and abroad and generally likes the status quo. It is the largest party in the Bundestag.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know Christian Social Union (CSU) The CSU is the sister party of the CDU in Bavaria and the two act symbiotically at the national level (CDU/CSU). Despite their similarities, the CSU is generally more conservative than the CDU on social issues. The CSU leader and premier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, ordered crosses in every state building in 2018.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know Social Democrats (SPD) The SPD is Germany's oldest political party and the main center-left rival of the CDU/CSU. It shares the CDU/CSU support for the EU and NATO, but it takes a more progressive stance on social issues and welfare policies. It is currently in a coalition government with the CDU/CSU and is trying to win back support under interim leaders Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know Alternative for Germany (AfD) The new kid on the block is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. The far-right party was founded in 2013 and entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 under the stewardship of Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland. It is largely united by opposition to Merkel's immigration policy, euroscepticism, and belief in the alleged dangers posed by Germany's Muslim population.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know Free Democrats (FDP) The FDP has traditionally been the kingmaker of German politics. Although it has never received more than 15 percent of the vote, it has formed multiple coalition governments with both the CDU/CSU and SPD. The FDP, today led by Christian Lindner, supports less government spending and lower taxes, but takes a progressive stance on social issues such as gay marriage or religion.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know The Greens The Greens, led today by Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, emerged from the environmental movement in the 1980s. Unsuprisingly, it supports efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment. It is also progressive on social issues. But strong divisions have occasionally emerged on other topics. The party famously split in the late 1990s over whether to use military force in Kosovo.

Germany's major political parties — What you need to know The Left The Left, led by Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, is the most left-wing party in the Bundestag. It supports major redistribution of wealth at home and a pacifist stance abroad, including withdrawing Germany from NATO. It emerged from the successor party to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ruled communist East Germany until 1989. Today, it still enjoys most of its support in eastern Germany. Author: Alexander Pearson



Monument of shame: AfD politicians have argued in the past that Germany is hobbled by its memory of the Holocaust. Björn Höcke, the party's Thuringia head, in January 2017 called for "nothing other than a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance." He took particular issue with Berlin's vast memorial to murdered Jews, calling it a "monument of shame." Gauland was one of the main politicians to defend Höcke against accusations of Nazism.

Who is Gauland? He is co-leader of the AfD, the main opposition party in Germany's Bundestag. The 77-year-old has repeatedly railed against Islam and argued that Germany should be proud of its World War I and World War II veterans. He has also been criticized for failing to rein in the extreme fringes of the party.

Between 1987 and 1991, Gauland was the right-hand man of the CDU's Walter Wallmann, the mayor of Frankfurt at the time. Through the years Gauland built up a reputation as one of the conservative minds of the CDU. He is also a liberal in the economic sense, believing in minimal state intervention.

It was arguably his published books on conservatism, in which his tone became increasingly gloomy and pessimistic, that are most emblematic of his shift to the right and his eventual move to the AfD.

aw/cmk (dpa, AFP)

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