Aiwanger can remain in office. This was announced by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder at a press conference on 03.09. A few weeks earlier, reports emerged that Aiwanger had allegedly written an anti-Semitic leaflet in his youth in which he referred positively to German fascism and the Holocaust.

According to former classmates and teachers, Aiwanger was said to made some fascist comments in his youth. Among other things, former classmates reported that Aiwanger bragged about having rehearsed Adolf Hitler's speeches in front of the mirror, having read his book "Mein Kampf," and having regularly made some anti-Semitic and racist statements. Among other things, he is also said to have written the above-mentioned leaflet and distributed it in his school. This was probably made on the occasion of a history competition, which was held at that time in a Bavarian school. The current Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs and Deputy Bavarian Minister President as well as head of the "Free Voters" party, Hubert Aiwanger, is said to have been about seventeen years old at the time and to have attended the eleventh grade of the high school.

A copy of the leaflet, which still exists today and was submitted to the bourgeois press, reads, among other things: "Federal competition: who is the greatest traitor to the fatherland?". Possible applicants were called upon to report "to the Dachau concentration camp for an interview". There would be "prizes" for a total of 1,000 participants, such as for places 7-1,000, who would spend "a night's stay in the Gestapo cellar" and "then off to Dachau. The ranking list with possible "prizes" goes on to first place: the winner can expect a "free flight through the chimney in Auschwitz". Also "a lifelong stay in the mass grave" or "a free neck shot" are possible. For the other places, further allusions to the crimes of the fascists are written.

In the said leaflet, therefore, cynical references are made to fascism and in it jokes are made about the atrocities of the German fascists. Aiwanger's reaction to the leaflet becoming public and the accusations against him was not to come to terms with his past and to exercise honest self-criticism for his actions at the time. Instead, he first denied this and claimed that he had not written this pamphlet. Then, a short time later, his twin brother, seemingly as a pawn to protect him, publicly admitted to having written and distributed this document at the time. An account that former classmates and teachers reject as untrue. A few days after this, when the pressure on Aiwanger continued to increase and it became obvious that he could not simply ward off the accusations against him by denying them, he "apologized" publicly for misconduct in his youth. However, he did not take a clear position on his actions and continued to deny having written the leaflet or having been on what he called a "misanthropic path." Instead, he merely acknowledged that he had "made mistakes" at the time and that he was "deeply sorry" if he had hurt feelings. He also explicitly asked "all victims of the Nazi regime, their survivors and all those involved in the valuable work of remembrance" to apologize, but since he does not take a clear position on his "mistakes" in his "apology" and continues to deny any fascist sentiments at the time, it remains unclear what he is actually apologizing for. Instead openly breaking with his past, Aiwanger rather presented himself as a victim. So he spoke shortly after he had "apologized" of a "smear campaign", which is led against him and expressed that the Shoah is abused here "for party-political purposes" and that some people tries to "destroy him politicaly".

His party, the "Freie Wähler" (Free Voters), is more or less united behind its chairman without any major contradictions or conflicts coming to light. The reaction of Prime Minister Söder in this affair was also more or less continuous to stand behind Aiwanger and to back him up. Obviously, because despite a massive media scandal, he did not let him resign from his office. There it should be noted that the parties of the two, the "Christian Social Union" (CSU) and the "Free Voters" work closely together and have jointly formed the government of the Free State of Bavaria since 2018.

Aiwanger is of course not completely wrong in his description of a campaign against him, because there can be no question of a coincidence when "suddenly" a leaflet that is several dozen years old, and of which various people apparently knew, becomes a central topic in the bourgeois press. Here one has to keep in mind that in scarcely more than one month, on 08 October, 2023, the next federal state elections in Bavaria are on the horizon and accordingly it is quite obvious that this story was unshelved very deliberately in the present moment by the parliamentary opposition and dragged into the public.

Katharina Schulze, the Green top candidate in Bavaria, for example, said that Aiwanger was "no longer bearable" and accused Söder of ducking away on this issue. Green Party leader Omid Nouripour was also outraged by Söder's dealings with Aiwanger, telling to the newspaper Der Spiegel that such dealings were "indecent and bad for Bavaria" and "bad for Germany." Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said to the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) about Söders decision to leave Aiwanger in office: "Mr. Söder has not decided out of attitude and responsibility, but out of simple power calculation" FDP leader Lindner called Aiwangers handling of the accusations "highly problematic" in the ARD summer interview. The actual head of the german state Olaf Scholz also commented on the accusations and spoke, for example, of the fact that in the Aiwanger case nothing should be "covered up or blurred." A little ironic, if you look at the numerous false statements and "memory gaps" of Scholz to the Cum-Ex scandal.

As implausible as the current self-dramatization of Aiwanger as a victim is, the accusations against him are nevertheless in fact being used with political calculation by the various politicians. When these accusations became known to an important man in the Bavarian government, the politicians of the SPD, FDP and the Greens saw in it the opportunity to drive a wedge into the cooperation between the CSU and the Free Voters. This could have led to the collapse of the local Bavarian government, which would probably have resulted in one or more of the aforementioned three parties moving into the Bavarian government. With the decision to leave Aiwanger in office, Söder probably wanted to counteract this.

In fact, the great indignation of the governing parties about the fact that a rival politician, more than thirty years ago, provoked as a teenager with fascist statements and pamphlets is very implausible. Especially when you consider the continuity in which the german state stands. Since its foundation, the FRG has never consistently broken with fascism. After the end of the II World War, the FRG was built up and led by all those who were also part of the state apparatus during fascism. Nazi judges who sent communists to the Kzs in 1933-1945 were allowed to continue working in West Germany after 45, under the label of bourgeois democracy, and in some cases they even sentenced the same communists again and sent them to prison. In the various parts of the administration of the state in the past you can find many people who were previously in the "NSDAP" or the SS. Especially in building up the army, the police and the secret services of the FRG, former SS men were recruited specifically. In politics, too, numerous fascists were able to make a new career unhindered. This time as "democrats".

Well-known examples are, for example, the CDU politician Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who despite his past as an "NSDAP" member was able to become german state leader from 1966 to 1969. Or the former SS Untersturmführer Hans Martin Schleyer, who after the Second World War became President of the Employers' Association and Chairman of the Federation of German Industry until he was liquidated by the RAF in 1977. But too in the SPD and FDP, There were also some politicians who had previously been in the "NSDAP". Well-known examples would be, for example, the former FDP politician and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the Ministers of Economics and Finance Karl Schiller (SPD) and Liselotte Funcke (FDP), the former head of the Chancellor's Office Horst Ehmke (SPD) or the former member of the Bundestag SPD politician Klaus Konrad, who was not only a "NSDAP" member during the Second World War, but also as a staff officer of the Wehrmacht in Italy was directly involved in the "Massacre of San Polo". In this, first 17 inhabitants were shot during an attack on a village and then 48 villagers were taken prisoner, subsequently tortured and finally shot and partly buried alive. In an interview about this, Klaus Konrad said in 2004 that he had never felt guilty about this. Truly a great anti-fascist tradition in which these both parties stand.