Right-wing resurgence grips Bavaria after antisemitism scandal

The Jewish community faces an unsettling situation after an antisemitism scandal engulfed the Bavarian regional government ahead of a crucial state election.

The south German region is ruled by a coalition of the centre-right CSU and the Free Voters (FW). Two months ago, FW leader Hubert Aiwanger, who is also the economy minister, was accused of writing an antisemitic leaflet mocking victims of the holocaust as a schoolboy.

The scandal sent shockwaves through Germany, where antisemitism and Nazism are taboos due to the country’s past. However, it does not seem to have hurt Aiwanger’s party: the FW and the far-right AfD have gained support following the scandal, according to polls ahead of the regional elections on 8 October.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister Markus Söder’s CSU has lost support following his controversial decision to leave Aiwanger in office, citing a lack of evidence against him.

The scandal and its fallout points to significant pockets of antisemitic feeling among the region’s population.

“It is not the case that all Bavarians have suddenly become indifferent to antisemitism,” Lars Rensmann, a political scientist at the University of Passau who has worked on antisemitism, told Euractiv.

Rather, the economy minister managed to mobilise the “large right-wing authoritarian and right-wing extremist potential” in the region, he said, adding that “Aiwanger has succeeded in portraying himself as the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by ‘evil elites’ and ‘establishment media”.

Following the media revelations, the economy minister claimed that his brother was the author of the leaflet and complained that he was the victim of a smear campaign.

More than the leaflet itself, it is the sudden emergence of radical attitudes that is troubling for the large Jewish community in Bavaria.

“There is an empirical correlation between anti-establishment attitudes, conspiracy theories, and antisemitism,” Rensmann noted.

Right-wing hatred still drives the majority – nearly a fifth – of recorded antisemitic incidents in Germany where the motivation is known, according to RIAS, a German non-profit that researches antisemitism.

“A society that is respectful of all minorities – Jews, Muslims, religions and ethnicities – and has a healthy democracy and a civil form of public dialogue is always a safer society for Jews,” Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Chief Rabbi of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), told Euractiv.

The CER, an association of Jewish religious leaders in Europe, recently completed the relocation of its headquarters from London to Munich, Bavaria’s capital city.

The decision was also driven by the support of the CSU-led government, confirmed Goldschmidt, who declined to comment directly on the Aiwanger case.

The ambiguous role of the CSU

Bavarian Jews have long been able to rely on the CSU as a guarantor of protection from antisemitism.

Accordingly, community leaders rallied behind the party despite Markus Söder’s refusal to fire Aiwanger.

“Overall, I understand the prime minister’s decision,” Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, declared after Söder’s announcement.

“The Jewish communities are served very well by the regional government, and I’m positive it will stay that way if the elections produce the results I’m hoping for,” Charlotte Knobloch, a holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish community in Munich, affirmed at the opening ceremony of the new CER headquarters.

Much of the community’s ire focuses on Aiwanger instead. Knobloch rejected his personal apology, comparing the leaflet to the “vile propaganda of the Nazi era”.

For the CSU, the responsibility to make things right lies with the FW leader.

“To us this case is about unequivocally showing Jewish organisations and citizens that we support them and that their concerns are a priority. It’s now up to Mr Aiwanger to show this as well,” Florian Herrmann, minister of the Bavarian state chancellery and a close ally of Söder, told Euractiv.

He insisted that the current polls merely reflected “a temporary phenomenon” and that the CSU “would simply have to carry on calmly”.

However, the party is noticeably feeling pressure to regain right-wing voters ahead of the election. It has markedly shifted its talking points to the right, particularly on migration.

Söder made headlines with calls for a rigorous cap on asylum and a national effort to bring down numbers, a discourse that appears to be at odds with Goldschmidt’s plea for openness.

The right-ward shift of the Bavarian campaign reflects the risks of modern Jewish life, as the Chief Rabbi stated that “a Jew today will always feel a little bit at home and a little bit alien [wherever they go]”.

However, the CER felt relatively comfortable in Bavaria, he added.

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Benjamin Fox]