Left-wing presidential candidate compares refugees to persecuted Jews
Left-wing presidential candidate draws parallels to the Nazi era when it comes to poverty
Gerhard Trabert is the left candidate for the office of Federal President. At the digital start of the year for his party, he sees a parallel between the social exclusion of poor and refugee people and the persecution of Jews during the Nazi era.
The non-party candidate for Federal President of the Left drew comparisons with the exclusion of people who had fled with the Jews persecuted during the Nazi era. He later corrected himself. The FDP calls on the left to withdraw the candidate.
Dhe left-wing candidate for the office of Federal President, Gerhard Trabert, drew a parallel to the persecution of Jews during the Nazi era with regard to the social exclusion of poor and refugee people. At the digital start of the year for the left, the social physician quoted a Jewish youth who died in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp. In his diary, the boy complained that society ignored the fate of the Jews.
Trabert said: “Why this quote? Just as many Germans knew back then what was happening to the Jews, today we know what is happening to refugees in the Mediterranean, in Libyan and Syrian camps. We know how poverty is increasing, we know about the increased death rate of poor people here in Germany too. Comparing the richest with the poorest quarter, poor women die 4.4 and poor men 8.6 years earlier. It’s all a scandal.” The causes lie in economic, social, trade and foreign policy. “We must not stop naming this, this form of structural violence,” said Trabert.
Vogel: “Trabert obviously disqualifies himself for everyone”
The candidate later clarified on Twitter: “I’m not interested in a historical equation. The suffering of many people caused by the National Socialists was indescribably greater and cannot be compared. But the tendency to look the other way must be clearly criticized. It’s about looking, especially in this day and age, and learning from the past.”
The first parliamentary secretary of the FDP parliamentary group, Johannes Vogel, nevertheless called for consequences: “It is completely incomprehensible to me that there are always people who draw historically forgotten comparisons to the Nazi era. These statements are absolutely unacceptable and as confused as they are historical. With this, Gerhard Trabert disqualifies himself, of course, and obviously for everyone, for the highest state office. The left should critically consider whether to continue with this candidacy,” said Vogel WELT AM SONNTAG.
“Courts abuse power”
The non-party was nominated by the left this week as a candidate for the election of the Federal President in February. The doctor has been working in the health care of homeless and refugees for decades. He said about the situation today: “The courts also abuse their power to silence criticism in this democracy. We must not accept that.”
Trabert referred to the Frenchman Stéphane Hessel and his criticism of financial capitalism and emphasized that “resistance” to anti-social politics was necessary. The left must also become more profiled.