Latest news with #HubertAiwanger
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Germany is ‘importing' antisemitism, our leaders claim. Irony is not their strong point
It could have been a Mitchell and Webb sketch – a man with a very German accent and a distinguished Nazi grandfather complaining: 'These foreigners, coming over here, importing their antisemitism.' Only this was not a comedy. The man was Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and he was making his complaint last month in an interview with Fox news in the US, attributing rising antisemitism in Germany to 'the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years'. How did Merz manage to miss the joke – apart from by being German of course? The chancellor is not the only German politician to have made the dubious connection between foreigners and antisemitism. Hubert Aiwanger, the deputy premier of Bavaria, made headlines in 2023 when an antisemitic leaflet he was alleged to have written at school – better known as the Auschwitz pamphlet – came to light. Aiwanger denied writing the leaflet. Then his brother joined the fray, claiming authorship, and hardly anybody mentioned it again. However, it didn't stop Aiwanger from declaring later that year: 'We have imported antisemitism to Germany.' How did 'imported antisemitism', a far-right anti-immigrant buzz phrase, make it into the political mainstream? After all, Germans didn't exactly need to import antisemitism. But this is the way we see it in Germany: if you haven't committed genocide you can't properly claim to be against it. I'm not making this up. You couldn't make it up. Indeed, the political scientist Esra Özyürek discusses the belief in her excellent 2023 book Subcontractors of Guilt. The thinking behind it is that because of our history, we teach the next generation to make sure it will never happen again. At school we studied the Holocaust every year. We didn't learn to analyse antisemitism, but we learned to be very wary of it – or as the writer Max Czollek put it: 'Today Germans know mainly one thing about Jews: that they killed them.' Immigrants to Germany need to know a bit more than that if they want to become German citizens. They need to know when the state of Israel was founded, and who is allowed to become a member of one of the 40 Maccabi sports clubs. If you're not born in Germany you have to prove you're not antisemitic by learning facts about Jewish people. But even if you were born here, like me, the statistics still refer to you as an immigrant if one of your parents comes from a different country. And as such, you are viewed with suspicion when it comes to the antisemitism you may have 'imported'. During the last election, Merz suggested revoking German citizenship from dual nationals if they committed a crime. When asked if that meant, for example, getting on a bus without a ticket, he made it clear it related to antisemitism. However, antisemitism is not a criminal offence in German law, so we see it everywhere. Jews have been arrested for holding up signs reading 'Jews against genocide'. An Irish protester was arrested in Berlin for speaking Irish at a demonstration for Palestine because the authorities did not have an Irish translator present to check if they were 'importing antisemitism' too. This has gone so far that the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner has reprimanded Germany for criminalising protest against the war in Gaza – including curtailing the use of Arabic at protests. In the end Merz didn't get his way, but he drove the message home: Germans like me with foreign heritage are Germans on trial. In 2024 the German parliament adopted a controversial Never Again is Now resolution to fight antisemitism. One of the examples cited was the 'Berlinale scandal'. When No Other Land won the documentary award at the Berlin film festival, the Israeli film-maker Yuval Abraham called for an end to apartheid and his Palestinian co-director, Basel Adra, added that he found it very hard to celebrate 'when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza'. The outcry in Germany was so massive that the then culture minister, Claudia Roth, felt compelled to announce that she had only applauded the Israeli film-maker, not his Palestinian counterpart. By contrast, the resolution made no mention of the 2019 Yom Kippur attack in Halle, in which a rightwing terrorist tried to break into a synagogue to commit a massacre (he failed to get inside, but killed two passersby). Nor did the resolution acknowledge the surely vital fact that 85% of all antisemitic violence in Germany is committed by rightwing perpetrators, and instead promised to combat antisemitism by 'exploiting repressive options' in asylum and citizenship law. In other words: they are the ones with the antisemitism problem, not us. When I was at school we read Friedrich, a novel by Hans Peter Richter, with the motto: 'Back then it was the Jews, today it's Black people, tomorrow it might be the whites, the Christians or the civil servants.' We didn't think that all forms of racism were the same as Hitler's antisemitism, but this was how we understood 'never again'. The problem with German exceptionalism is that it means we can't really learn from the Holocaust. In fact, in April a woman was fined €1,500 by a German court for holding up a sign outside a government building that read: 'Haven't we learned anything from the Holocaust?' That same week, the German legal system decided that shouting 'Piss off, foreigners! Germany for the Germans' wasn't a problem. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion A further irony is that many of the people accused of importing antisemitism into Germany may well have grandparents who fought for the allies against the Nazis. I wish we had learned about that at school. Just as I wish we'd teach children – and politicians – that the kind of eliminatory antisemitism that peaked during the Holocaust was a European phenomenon. That doesn't mean there is no antisemitism beyond Europe's borders, in the Arab world or otherwise, but it has a different history. Some antisemitic tropes, for example the idea of an international Jewish conspiracy, only found their way into the Levant during the second world war. Perhaps it would be more correct to speak of exported antisemitism. Mithu Sanyal is a novelist, academic, literary critic, columnist and broadcaster.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Germany is ‘importing' antisemitism, our leaders claim. Irony is not their strong point
It could have been a Mitchell and Webb sketch – a man with a very German accent and a distinguished Nazi grandfather complaining: 'These foreigners, coming over here, importing their antisemitism.' Only this was not a comedy. The man was Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and he was making his complaint last month in an interview with Fox news in the US, attributing rising antisemitism in Germany to 'the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years'. How did Merz manage to miss the joke – apart from by being German of course? The chancellor is not the only German politician to have made the dubious connection between foreigners and antisemitism. Hubert Aiwanger, the deputy premier of Bavaria, made headlines in 2023 when an antisemitic leaflet he was alleged to have written at school – better known as the Auschwitz pamphlet – came to light. Aiwanger denied writing the leaflet. Then his brother joined the fray, claiming authorship, and hardly anybody mentioned it again. However, it didn't stop Aiwanger from declaring later that year: 'We have imported antisemitism to Germany.' How did 'imported antisemitism', a far-right anti-immigrant buzz phrase, make it into the political mainstream? After all, Germans didn't exactly need to import antisemitism. But this is the way we see it in Germany: if you haven't committed genocide you can't properly claim to be against it. I'm not making this up. You couldn't make it up. Indeed, the political scientist Esra Özyürek discusses the belief in her excellent 2023 book Subcontractors of Guilt. The thinking behind it is that because of our history, we teach the next generation to make sure it will never happen again. At school we studied the Holocaust every year. We didn't learn to analyse antisemitism, but we learned to be very wary of it – or as the writer Max Czollek put it: 'Today Germans know mainly one thing about Jews: that they killed them.' Immigrants to Germany need to know a bit more than that if they want to become German citizens. They need to know when the state of Israel was founded, and who is allowed to become a member of one of the 40 Maccabi sports clubs. If you're not born in Germany you have to prove you're not antisemitic by learning facts about Jewish people. But even if you were born here, like me, the statistics still refer to you as an immigrant if one of your parents comes from a different country. And as such, you are viewed with suspicion when it comes to the antisemitism you may have 'imported'. During the last election, Merz suggested revoking German citizenship from dual nationals if they committed a crime. When asked if that meant, for example, getting on a bus without a ticket, he made it clear it related to antisemitism. However, antisemitism is not a criminal offence in German law, so we see it everywhere. Jews have been arrested for holding up signs reading 'Jews against genocide'. An Irish protester was arrested in Berlin for speaking Irish at a demonstration for Palestine because the authorities did not have an Irish translator present to check if they were 'importing antisemitism' too. This has gone so far that the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner has reprimanded Germany for criminalising protest against the war in Gaza – including curtailing the use of Arabic at protests. In the end Merz didn't get his way, but he drove the message home: Germans like me with foreign heritage are Germans on trial. In 2024 the German parliament adopted a controversial Never Again is Now resolution to fight antisemitism. One of the examples cited was the 'Berlinale scandal'. When No Other Land won the documentary award at the Berlin film festival, the Israeli film-maker Yuval Abraham called for an end to apartheid and his Palestinian co-director, Basel Adra, added that he found it very hard to celebrate 'when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza'. The outcry in Germany was so massive that the then culture minister, Claudia Roth, felt compelled to announce that she had only applauded the Israeli film-maker, not his Palestinian counterpart. By contrast, the resolution made no mention of the 2019 Yom Kippur attack in Halle, in which a rightwing terrorist tried to break into a synagogue to commit a massacre (he failed to get inside, but killed two passersby). Nor did the resolution acknowledge the surely vital fact that 85% of all antisemitic violence in Germany is committed by rightwing perpetrators, and instead promised to combat antisemitism by 'exploiting repressive options' in asylum and citizenship law. In other words: they are the ones with the antisemitism problem, not us. When I was at school we read Friedrich, a novel by Hans Peter Richter, with the motto: 'Back then it was the Jews, today it's Black people, tomorrow it might be the whites, the Christians or the civil servants.' We didn't think that all forms of racism were the same as Hitler's antisemitism, but this was how we understood 'never again'. The problem with German exceptionalism is that it means we can't really learn from the Holocaust. In fact, in April a woman was fined €1,500 by a German court for holding up a sign outside a government building that read: 'Haven't we learned anything from the Holocaust?' That same week, the German legal system decided that shouting 'Piss off, foreigners! Germany for the Germans' wasn't a problem. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion A further irony is that many of the people accused of importing antisemitism into Germany may well have grandparents who fought for the allies against the Nazis. I wish we had learned about that at school. Just as I wish we'd teach children – and politicians – that the kind of eliminatory antisemitism that peaked during the Holocaust was a European phenomenon. That doesn't mean there is no antisemitism beyond Europe's borders, in the Arab world or otherwise, but it has a different history. Some antisemitic tropes, for example the idea of an international Jewish conspiracy, only found their way into the Levant during the second world war. Perhaps it would be more correct to speak of exported antisemitism. Mithu Sanyal is a novelist, academic, literary critic, columnist and broadcaster.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Taiwan's TSMC to open semiconductor design centre in Munich
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world's leading chip manufacturers, is to open a design centre in the German city of Munich later this year. The economy minister in the southern German state of Bavaria, Hubert Aiwanger, said on Tuesday that the facility is to open in the third quarter of the year. It will aim to develop chips for the automotive industry and other sectors, he said. TSMC is a leader in semiconductor technology, specializing in building thin, efficient and energy-saving chips. The Taiwanese firm is currently building a factory near the eastern German city of Dresden with several partner companies. Aiwanger said the establishment of the design centre in Munich strengthens Bavaria's position in microelectronics. Munich is home to chip manufacturer Infineon, while Apple chose the city as the location for its European chip design centre in 2021. Neither the ministry nor TSMC have disclosed how much money the company is investing in Munich, or how many people will work in the new facility.
New Straits Times
05-05-2025
- Automotive
- New Straits Times
German official opposes tariffs, calls for stronger economic ties with China
BERLIN: Escalating trade tensions and punitive tariffs imposed by the United States could harm the global economy and pose serious risks to Germany's manufacturing sector, Hubert Aiwanger, deputy minister president of the German state of Bavaria, warned in a recent interview. Speaking during a visit to Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO's battery swap station in Zusmarshausen, near Munich, Aiwanger stressed the importance of a rules-based international trade system and expressed strong support for continued economic cooperation with China, reported Xinhua. From Bavaria's perspective, he said, punitive tariffs – whether imposed by the European Union (EU) on China or by the United States on China or the EU – are self-defeating. "Trade barriers only lead to retaliation and economic harm," he noted. "What our businesses and citizens need is open, fair, and stable international cooperation." His comments come amid rising concern in Germany over the Trump administration's plans to introduce sweeping new tariffs, which will deal a blow to global automakers like BMW, headquartered in Bavaria, that depend heavily on global supply chains and international production networks. Germany's export-driven manufacturers, many of which source components from one country, assemble in another, and sell to a third, are particularly exposed to rising trade barriers. Tariffs imposed at multiple stages, from imports of Chinese goods to exports to the United States, create a hostile environment for globally integrated companies. Aiwanger urged major economies to resolve trade disputes through dialogue and cooperation. "The best path forward is to work toward a global market with minimal tariffs and fair competition rules," he said. Against this backdrop, Aiwanger welcomed the growing presence of Chinese companies in Europe, citing NIO's expansion as an example of mutually beneficial cooperation. The automaker recently opened its 60th battery swap station in Europe. "We welcome innovative Chinese companies like NIO investing and operating in Bavaria," he said, adding that such partnerships support Bavaria's efforts to transition toward electric mobility and green energy. He emphasised that the battery-swap model could alleviate concerns among German consumers about EV range and charging convenience. Economic ties between Bavaria and China remain robust. As one of Germany's most industrialised states and home to Siemens, Allianz, and Audi, Bavaria hosts about 500 Chinese companies. Bilateral trade volume nearly doubled in a decade – from 27 billion euros (US$30.51 billion) in 2013 to 53 billion euros in 2023, according to statistics from the Bavarian government. Regarding the annual dialogue sessions held by the Bavarian government with Chinese firms operating locally, Aiwanger said, "We value their input. They are highly motivated, eager to learn, and focused on results. These conversations help us improve administrative services and streamline approval processes." In October 2024, Aiwanger led a four-day delegation to China, where he met with business leaders and officials to discuss topics such as autonomous driving and sustainable transportation. Recalling that visit, he said he was particularly impressed by the speed and efficiency with which Chinese companies develop and scale new products and infrastructure. "German companies that cooperate with Chinese suppliers value this agility." Looking ahead, Aiwanger emphasised the potential for further collaboration with China in artificial intelligence and green industrial transformation. "AI is a key topic in nearly every international exchange, and China is making rapid advances," he said, expressing confidence in the mutual benefits brought by joint research and innovation. "Chinese firms are well-positioned to expand globally," he said. "As long as they bring high-quality products, they are welcome in Bavaria. Our economic ties should transcend geopolitics and focus on mutual benefit."
The Star
04-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Star
Interview: German official opposes tariffs, calls for stronger economic ties with China
BERLIN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Escalating trade tensions and punitive tariffs imposed by the United States could harm the global economy and pose serious risks to Germany's manufacturing sector, Hubert Aiwanger, deputy minister president of the German state of Bavaria, warned in a recent interview. Speaking during a visit to Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO's battery swap station in Zusmarshausen, near Munich, Aiwanger stressed the importance of a rules-based international trade system and expressed strong support for continued economic cooperation with China. From Bavaria's perspective, he said, punitive tariffs - whether imposed by the European Union (EU) on China or by the United States on China or the EU - are self-defeating. "Trade barriers only lead to retaliation and economic harm," he noted. "What our businesses and citizens need is open, fair, and stable international cooperation." His comments come amid rising concern in Germany over the Trump administration's plans to introduce sweeping new tariffs, which will deal a blow to global automakers like BMW, headquartered in Bavaria, that depend heavily on global supply chains and international production networks. Germany's export-driven manufacturers, many of which source components from one country, assemble in another, and sell to a third, are particularly exposed to rising trade barriers. Tariffs imposed at multiple stages, from imports of Chinese goods to exports to the United States, create a hostile environment for globally integrated companies. Aiwanger urged major economies to resolve trade disputes through dialogue and cooperation. "The best path forward is to work toward a global market with minimal tariffs and fair competition rules," he said. Against this backdrop, Aiwanger welcomed the growing presence of Chinese companies in Europe, citing NIO's expansion as an example of mutually beneficial cooperation. The automaker recently opened its 60th battery swap station in Europe. "We welcome innovative Chinese companies like NIO investing and operating in Bavaria," he said, adding that such partnerships support Bavaria's efforts to transition toward electric mobility and green energy. He emphasized that the battery-swap model could alleviate concerns among German consumers about EV range and charging convenience. Economic ties between Bavaria and China remain robust. As one of Germany's most industrialized states and home to Siemens, Allianz, and Audi, Bavaria hosts about 500 Chinese companies. Bilateral trade volume nearly doubled in a decade -- from 27 billion euros (30.51 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013 to 53 billion euros in 2023, according to statistics from the Bavarian government. Regarding the annual dialogue sessions held by the Bavarian government with Chinese firms operating locally, Aiwanger said, "We value their input. They are highly motivated, eager to learn, and focused on results. These conversations help us improve administrative services and streamline approval processes." In October 2024, Aiwanger led a four-day delegation to China, where he met with business leaders and officials to discuss topics such as autonomous driving and sustainable transportation. Recalling that visit, he said he was particularly impressed by the speed and efficiency with which Chinese companies develop and scale new products and infrastructure. "German companies that cooperate with Chinese suppliers value this agility." Looking ahead, Aiwanger emphasized the potential for further collaboration with China in artificial intelligence and green industrial transformation. "AI is a key topic in nearly every international exchange, and China is making rapid advances," he said, expressing confidence in the mutual benefits brought by joint research and innovation. "Chinese firms are well-positioned to expand globally," he said. "As long as they bring high-quality products, they are welcome in Bavaria. Our economic ties should transcend geopolitics and focus on mutual benefit."
