Bavaria: Söder gives press conference in the leaflet affair about Aiwanger

The processing of the affair about Bavaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger and an anti-Semitic leaflet from school days is about to reach its decisive climax: Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) wants to hold a press conference at short notice.

The State Chancellery invites you to do so at 11 a.m., “due to current events”, as the invitation states. Söder’s decision is eagerly awaited as to whether or not he will dismiss the Minister for Economic Affairs a month before the state elections on October 8th.

The free voter boss had recently had to answer Söder’s extensive list of questions about the allegations in writing. After that he would make a final assessment, Söder had announced in advance.

Aiwanger fights back

New allegations had been made against Aiwanger for a week. A week ago on Saturday, he initially denied in writing that he had written an anti-Semitic leaflet during his school days that the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” had reported on. At the same time, however, he admitted that “one or a few copies” were found in his school bag. Shortly thereafter, Aiwanger’s older brother claimed to have written the pamphlet.

Aiwanger apologized publicly for the first time on Thursday. With regard to the allegations, he stuck to previous statements – in particular that he did not write the leaflet and that he could not remember showing the Hitler salute as a schoolboy. On X (formerly Twitter), he also dismissed the accusation that he had Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in his school bag as “nonsense”. He either did not comment on other allegations or said that he could neither deny nor confirm them from his memory.

At the same time, the head of the Free Voters counterattacked, complaining about a political campaign against him and his party – which immediately brought him new allegations, for example from the Central Council of Jews.