In the leaflet affair about Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters), Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) increased the pressure on his deputy and his party again. He is reacting to a contribution by BR magazine “Report Munich” from Tuesday evening. In it, a former classmate reports that Aiwanger repeatedly “showed a Hitler salute” at school, imitated Hitler speeches and made jokes about Jews.
There must be a “fair procedure”, but “all questions must be clarified beyond any doubt. There must be no suspicion left,” said Söder on Wednesday morning on the sidelines of an appointment in Greding. This also applies “to the new allegations that have now become known”. Aiwanger himself responded to these allegations with a tweet on Wednesday morning: “#Dirty campaigns end up backfiring.”
It was only on Tuesday that Söder asked his deputy for further clarification on the anti-Semitic leaflet that Aiwanger had in his school bag as an eleventh grader. In the meantime, Söder has sent him a questionnaire with 25 questions that he has to answer “quickly”. Söder also said that “nothing should be added” to allegations against Aiwanger. That’s what happened.
From CSU circles it is said that the classmate’s interview had “an effect”. Aiwanger is “under increasing pressure to explain”. But of course Aiwanger “must have the chance to explain himself comprehensively”.
After first the Southgerman newspaper had reported on the leaflet, Aiwanger had admitted that he had been caught with the pamphlets in his school bag as an eleventh grader. The author of the leaflet is said to have been his brother Helmut, but Hubert Aiwanger says he cannot remember whether he “passed it on” at school, i.e. distributed it. “Many questions remained and remain unanswered,” Söder said on Tuesday.
Now the eyes are not only on Aiwanger, but also on his Free Voters, who have supported their party leader up to now. The BR report could also trigger a dynamic in Aiwanger’s party. The report underpins the research of the SZ, which reported on teachers and classmates last Friday. According to their statements, Aiwanger was known for his extreme right-wing views at his former high school in Mallersdorf-Pfaffenberg. Accordingly, Aiwanger boasted that he had rehearsed Hitler’s speeches in front of Der Spiegel and read his banned book “Mein Kampf”. At their request, the SZ had anonymized the former teachers and classmates. They are concerned about disciplinary and social consequences. In “Report Munich” a classmate has now expressed his name for the first time.