DistantNews
Support us
🇩🇪 Germany /Elections & Politics

Saxony-Anhalt Green candidate says husband was not violent in far-right scene

From Die Zeit · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Ongoing story
  • Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz said her husband briefly moved in a far-right environment in the 1990s but did not participate in violent or criminal acts.
  • She said he later rejected the ideology, left the right-wing circle and became a democrat and antifascist.
  • The controversy comes before Saxony-Anhalt’s state election, where polls put the AfD well ahead and the Greens’ projected support could affect whether the AfD governs alone.

Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz is defending her husband’s past as a political campaign turns toward his links to the far-right scene three decades ago. The lead candidate for the Greens in Saxony-Anhalt said he never took part in violence or other criminal acts.

I never doubted that my husband was a democrat and an antifascist.

· Susan Sziborra-SeidlitzShe described her view of her husband after his earlier association with a far-right milieu.

“He took part in political discussions, hiking trips and, for example, solstice celebrations,” she told Die Zeit. The far-right activist Steffen Hupka, then known in the region, visited the youth club in the Harz that her husband attended between 1994 and 1996 and tried to recruit young people for the neo-Nazi scene.

Sziborra-Seidlitz said that by the time she met her husband in the early 2000s, that period was long over. “I never doubted that my husband was a democrat and an antifascist,” she said. She added that the past remains deeply shameful for him and that he discusses it with her but dislikes speaking about it publicly.

To this day, this story is extremely shameful for him. He talks to me about it, but otherwise very reluctantly and certainly not in public.

· Susan Sziborra-SeidlitzShe explained why her husband rarely discusses his past.

Her husband eventually left the circle, she said, because he found the demand to organize one’s entire life around far-right ideology repellent. “He then also broke away from his right-wing circle and found a new one.” Sziborra-Seidlitz argued that people can change their views and return to democratic politics.

How could I think differently in Saxony-Anhalt? Here, 40 percent are prepared to vote for a far-right party.

· Susan Sziborra-SeidlitzShe discussed the political environment before the state election.

The state election is scheduled for Sunday, with the AfD leading in the polls. She said many voters support it out of frustration and because the party has become a cultural trend. She also warned that the Greens’ expected six or seven percent could determine whether AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund can govern alone, describing the campaign against her husband as an attempt to take away their momentum.

Because our six or perhaps even seven percent will determine whether Ulrich Siegmund can govern the state alone or not.

· Susan Sziborra-SeidlitzShe described the potential electoral importance of the Greens’ support.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Zeit in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog