AfD’s Siegmund wins election on Lastavica, the communist East German icon, angering Jewish heirs

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD leader in Saxony-Anhalt and winner of the state election, turned a light-blue Simson KR51 Schwalbe into a campaign symbol. He rode the vintage East German moped to the polling station with his wife, Julia.

The Schwalbe, whose name means “swallow” in German, was one of Simson's bird-named mopeds produced during the communist German Democratic Republic. Siegmund and the AfD used the machines in organized rides across the region, known as “Simson-Ausfahrten.” The campaign symbolism suggested an escape from the current political and economic situation under the center-right CDU.

The imagery provoked sharp criticism from the heirs of the Jewish family that founded the company. Löb and Moses Simson established Simson & Co. in Thuringia in 1854. After the Nazis came to power, the family was systematically dispossessed and expelled from Germany in 1936 before fleeing to the United States.

Dennis Baum, the grandson of one of the former owners' daughters and the family's official spokesman in the United States, said the family finds “any connection with the AfD repulsive, an insult to their name and a mockery of their family history.” The heirs consider it especially painful that a party classified by German intelligence services as right-wing extremist and unconstitutional in some eastern states is using the name and legacy of a family persecuted by the Nazi right.

The dispute went beyond campaign rides. The AfD began producing and selling shirts and posters combining the official Simson brand logo with the AfD logo. Organizations protecting copyright and trademark rights then took legal action. A court ordered the destruction of all the materials. The article also links similar use of the Schwalbe to AfD figures including Björn Höcke in Thuringia.

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Any connection with the AfD repulsive, an insult to their name and a mockery of their family history.