Politician named Adolf Hitler wins local election in Namibia
Adolf Hitler Uunona says his father, who named him, ‘probably did not understand what Adolf Hitler stood for’; he assures his constituents he has no plans for world domination
A man named Adolf Hitler has once again come to power — in Namibia.
Adolf Hitler Uunona, who goes by Adolf Uunona, won a local election in the northern part of the former German colony and has insisted that unlike his namesake, he has no plans for world domination.
“My father named me after this man. He probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for,” he told German tabloid Bild.
He added: “It was a very normal name for me as a child. It was not until I was growing up that I realized that this man wanted to subjugate the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things.”
Uunona won the local election in the small town of Ompundja in the far north of the country with 85 percent of the votes, according to Africanews.
He ran on the ticket of the ruling SWAPO party, which has been the governing political party in Nambia since it achieved independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
His name was abbreviated to ‘Adolf H’ in a list of candidates printed in a government paper, but appeared in full on an official website that reported the election results, according to the Daily Mail.
When Asked by Bild why he did not just change his name, Uunona said that “It’s in all official documents, it’s too late for that.”
The media’s curiosity appeared to take its toll on Uunona, whose patience appeared to be wearing thin by the time he was contacted by an AFP journalist.
Sounding a tad annoyed, Uunona told AFP he was perplexed that people were intrigued by his being named after one of the world’s most notorious dictators. He refused to discuss the reasons he was named Adolf Hitler.
“I am not going to entertain the conversation, there is no reason we should be sitting here, having an entire conversation about my name,” he retorted.
“You really want us to have an entire conversation about my name? How will that make Namibia a better country, how will it contribute to the development of our country?” Uunona asked.
Once called German South West Africa, Namibia was a German colony from 1884 until the end of the First World War.
In 1904, Namibia was engulfed by conflict when the Herero people, and later the Namas, rose up against German colonial rule.
The Germans responded with ferocious repression that included massacres, forced deportations and forced labor.
Some of those targeted fled to neighboring Botswana, but according to historians, 80,000 Hereros out of 100,000 were killed, along with 10,000 Namas.
Germany long refused to take the blame for the episode, only accepting responsibility on the 100th anniversary of the massacres in 2004. But it ruled out the possibility of reparations.
AFP contributed to this report.
