Thomson Reuters
Alexander Gauland, coleader of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), at a news conference in Berlin, October 16, 2017.
- At a youth conference on Saturday, a German far-right political leader downplayed the Nazi era in Germany's history.
- The party in question, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has risen to prominence in recent years, pushing nationalist and anti-immigrant positions.
- AfD leaders have in the past been condemned for rhetoric about the Nazi regime.
A coleader from the far-right nationalist Alternative for Germany party downplayed the country's Nazi history in a speech over the weekend, drawing widespread condemnation.
AfD party leader Alexander Gauland said Germans must take responsibility for the Nazi era but claimed it was just a small part of the country's history during a speech to the party's youth wing, called Young Alternative.
"We have a glorious history - and that, dear friends, lasted longer than those damn 12 years," he said in reference to the Nazi era. "Yes, we accept our responsibility for those 12 years," Gauland said, adding, "Hitler and the Nazis are just bird s--- in more than 1,000 years of successful German history."
The comment drew applause, but reaction among attendees was mixed. Some thought Gauland's remarks were too ambiguous, while others felt he had pushed for the party to more strongly dissociate from references to the Nazi era.
Other German political leaders were more strident in their condemnations.
"It is shameful that we have to respond to such comments made by a member of the German Bundestag," a spokesman for German Prime Minister Angel Merkel told reporters. "The government completely and unequivocally rejects any relativisation, any downplaying of the Nazi crimes."
The spokesman described Hitler's regime and the Holocaust as "a singular crime against humanity."
A worker walks among concrete slabs at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe at the memorial's construction site in Berlin, Germany, February 16, 2004.
In a speech on Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier did not mention Gauland by name but said, "Those who today deny, trivialize or relativize this extraordinary rupture with civilization, are not only mocking the millions of victims, but want to deliberately reopen old wounds and foment hatred. And we need to oppose this together."
Other prominent German politicians joined in the condemnation.
"Fifty million dead in World War II, the Holocaust, total war - and to call it all 'bird s---' is such a slap in the face of the victims and such a relativization of what happened in the name of Germany," said Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, secretary general of the governing Christian Democratic Union. "It is simply stunning that this is said by the leader of a supposedly civic party."
Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the SPD, the CDU's coalition partner, called the remarks "a frightening trivialization of National Socialism." Klingbeil said Gauland had dropped all facades and that it was "a disgrace that such people are sitting in the German Bundestag."
Marco Buschmann of the opposition FDP said, "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." Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the opposition Green Party called Gauland's comments an insult to Holocaust survivors and their descendants, adding that such remarks highlighted the need to push back against a hate-filled minority.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
A member of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) with a sticker with a strike through a portrait of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the party congress in Hannover, November 28, 2015.
The AfD was formed in 2013, and at the time was mostly known for euro-skepticism and its opposition to the European Union's common currency.
It has since embraced anti-immigration positions, capitalizing on backlash to the influx of asylum-seekers since 2015.
In Germany's 2017 elections, the party took 13% of the vote, putting its first members in the national legislature. It is now the third-largest party in the Bundestag and the main opposition party.
AfD leaders have used speeches at the party's youth conference to embrace hard-right positions and whip up nationalist fervor, often denigrating German efforts to atone for the Holocaust.
In a January 2017 speech at the conference, Bjorn Hocke, a regional leader for the party, said "these stupid
He called for "nothing other than a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance" and criticized Berlin's vast memorial to murdered Jews, calling it a "monument of shame."
Gauland was a prominent defender of Hocke after the remarks. A party arbitration court ruled earlier this year that claims Hocke had shown an "affinity to National Socialism" were unfounded and that he had not intentionally violated the party's values, allowing him to remain in the party.