German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday blasts remarks by one of the leaders of the far-right AfD party seen as playing down the importance of the Nazi period and the Holocaust.
Alexander Gauland of the Alternative for Germany party, the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag lower house of parliament, sparked outrage over the weekend with a speech saying there was more to the country’s history than the 12 years of the Nazi regime.
“Yes, we plead guilty to our responsibility for the 12 years” of Nazi rule, he said. But “we have a glorious history and one, my dear friends, that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years,” Gauland said.
“Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”
Leading a chorus of condemnations, Steinmeier says that anyone “who denies that singular break with civilization or minimizes it not only ridicules the victims but also wants to rip open old wounds and sow new hatred.”
— AFP
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