Amid public attacks on Bavarian Deputy Prime Minister and Economics Minister Hubert Awanger (52, Free Voters), Professor Michael Wolfsohn (76) now speaks out. The prominent historian and author, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 as the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors, has also made serious allegations – not against the leader of the Free Voters, but against his critics. As a Jew, he opposes the misuse of anti-Semitic accusations for political purposes, as Wolfsohn emphasizes. Furthermore, he finds “unclean methods”, including the “Pseuddeutsche Zeitung”, which has no clean record regarding reporting on Jews.
German daily newspaper SZ put Avanger under enormous pressure with a report on Friday evening – eXpress reported. He claimed – erroneously according to the current state of knowledge – that Aiwanger had prepared and distributed a pamphlet 35 years earlier as a schoolboy that mocked the Auschwitz death camp in the most despicable way. Wolfssohn defends Aivanger, whose party he does not vote for. In a guest comment for “Bild” he gives eight arguments why not Avanger, but his critics deserve criticism.
First: Hubert Awanger “never made any anti-Semitic statements.”
Second: The leaflet was “disgusting,” disgusting, “inhumane,” but: “At the same time not all filth is anti-Semitic.” Wolfsohn’s reasoning: “Anti-Semitism detests Jews as Jews. They call for expropriation and even murder. There is not a word of that in this dirty text.”
However, the leaflet is very disgusting, “because it makes fun of hell on earth, namely the Nazi-German death camp at Auschwitz. About 1.3 million people were murdered there, of whom 1.1 million were Jews. Civilized people don’t joke about it.
Third: Like NZZ and eXXpress, Wolfsohn criticizes the fact that all witnesses insist on anonymity. In this specific case, from his point of view, it undermines his credibility. One wonders: why? “Strange: for a good cause – that is, the fight against anti-Semitism – not to fight with an open cap?”
Wolfsohn’s fourth point of criticism is particularly scathing: he accuses Avanger’s critics of using dictatorial methods. As it turned out, it was his brother, not Hubert Awanger, who wrote the leaflet. “If this is true, today’s anti-Nazis use methods that are otherwise common only in dictatorships, namely: clan obligations.”
Michael Wolfsohn is certain: “As a Jew, I will oppose those informers who are abusing us Jews for their daily political purposes.”
This brings the German-Jewish historian to a fifth point of criticism: The Nazi or anti-Semitic club is primarily used as a tool for political purposes – eXXpress has also criticized this in the past.
Wolfsohn: “Shortly before the elections in Bavaria, they want to brand the conservative Aiwanger and his independent voters as Nazis and the resulting anti-Semitism. Anyone who equates conservatives with ‘Nazi’ and ‘anti-Semitism’ Mindless and cynical. Whoever does this, let us Jews get out of this dirty game.”
Sixth, “hysterical avant-garde critics” actually measure “with a double standard”, because: “they accuse conservatives of youthful folly, obnoxiousness, mistakes, or a lifetime of guilt and, decades later, that is, even today, demand.” Michael Wolfsohn cites a counter-example from the Greens, former foreign minister Joschka Fischer, who is now considered a politician.
“At the age of 25, he brutally beat up a police officer, that is, a state official. forgive and forget. Because Joshka is green and Aiwanger is conservative?
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