Whereas the Weidels’ historical past shouldn’t be distinctive in a rustic the place the Nazi previous touches practically each household, these revelations are related given the AfD’s positions on Germany’s efforts to atone for the actions of earlier generations.
In 2018, the get together’s co-leader Alexander Gauland shocked the nation when he minimized the Nazi interval as “simply chicken shit” in a millennium of superb historical past. The earlier 12 months, Björn Höcke, one of many get together’s extra excessive figures, described a Holocaust memorial as a “monument of disgrace” and referred to as for a 180-degree reversal to the nation’s method to remembrance.
Regardless of its overt radicalism and warnings by authorities that it’s an extremist group, the AfD has surged in recognition. In September, it achieved probably the most vital electoral win for the far proper since WWII, capturing its first regional election victory. Now, with Alice Weidel as its prime candidate, the AfD is making ready to push its nationalist agenda within the upcoming federal election.
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It’s not that Weidel is totally against speaking about her household historical past. She has recounted the way it was expelled from what was once Silesia, now Poland — however she’s remained silent on her grandfather’s outstanding position within the Nazi regime.
Via a spokesperson, Weidel mentioned she had no information of her grandfather’s Nazi previous. “As a consequence of household discord, there was no contact with the grandfather, who died in 1985, nor was he a subject of dialog within the household,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Weidel was six years outdated when her grandfather Hans died. Her grandmother, additionally a member of the Nazi get together, handed away two years later.
