BERLIN (JTA) – Munich resident Marian Offman, born in Germany to Holocaust survivors in 1948, is sitting on the proverbial packed suitcase. Offman, his city’s commissioner for interfaith dialogue, is worried about what an AfD leadership would mean for Jews and other minorities.
“To me it is a pure Nazi party,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They are completely anti-religious, just like the Nazis were.”
Offman was among a number of Jews in Germany who expressed alarm at the plurality of 43.8% of the vote the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) received in Sunday’s election in the former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The prospect of an AfD-ruled state has many Germans, not only Jews, fearful of a resurgence of fascism in a country that has worked for decades to confront its Nazi past. Critics point to the party’s platform, which includes such points as expelling unwanted migrants; building pride in notions of German tradition and ethnicity; and stopping funding for “anti-German” art and culture.
The 13-year old AfD – with its anti-EU, anti-foreigner and nationalist stances – trounced the older established parties on Sunday, opening the door to the possibility that it could lead the government in that state.
