The hidden Nazi heritage of Germany’s far-right chief

While the Weidels’ historical past shouldn’t be distinctive in a rustic the place the Nazi previous touches practically each household, these revelations are related given the AfD’s positions on Germany’s efforts to atone for the actions of earlier generations.

In 2018, the party’s co-leader Alexander Gauland shocked the nation when he minimized the Nazi interval as “simply fowl shit” in a millennium of wonderful historical past. The earlier yr, Björn Höcke, one of many party’s extra excessive figures, described a Holocaust memorial as a “monument of disgrace” and referred to as for a 180-degree reversal to the nation’s method to remembrance.

Despite its overt radicalism and warnings by authorities that it’s an extremist group, the AfD has surged in reputation. In September, it achieved essentially the most important electoral win for the far proper since WWII, capturing its first regional election victory. Now, with Alice Weidel as its high candidate, the AfD is getting ready to push its nationalist agenda within the upcoming federal election.

Military judge

It’s not that Weidel is totally against speaking about her household historical past. She has recounted the way it was expelled from what was Silesia, now Poland — however she’s remained silent on her grandfather’s outstanding position within the Nazi regime.

Through a spokesperson, Weidel mentioned she had no information of her grandfather’s Nazi previous. “Due to household discord, there was no contact with the grandfather, who died in 1985, nor was he a subject of dialog within the household,” the spokesperson mentioned. 

Weidel was six years outdated when her grandfather Hans died. Her grandmother, additionally a member of the Nazi party, handed away two years later.