Concern in the Union is growing: Aiwanger could even benefit from the scandal

Jew jokes, Hitler salutes and other disgusting things from his youth, of which Hubert Aiwanger is suspected, which he does not want to rule out and for which he proactively apologized yesterday – they had been known to the CSU leadership for years. More precisely: At least for 15 years.

2008 was a devastating election year for the CSU – the party lost 17 percent in the Bavarian state elections, more than ever before. The two party leaders Günther Beckstein and Erwin Huber had to go, their successor was Horst Seehofer.

Talented beer tent speaker: Aiwanger mocked the CSU as an “establishment”

And for the first time, the CSU had serious competition from its own bourgeois camp – the Free Voters, led by Hubert Aiwanger. As a talented beer tent speaker, he acted in the style of Donald Trump today. Aiwanger ridiculed the CSU because of its decades-long reign as an “establishment”, which he contrasted with the free voters as an unused force, close to the people. Aiwanger came across with the Bavarian voters. And the CSU was irritated – and sensed dangerous competition that called their claim to sole representation into question – among middle-class voters of all people, especially in rural areas.

During this time, Aiwanger confronted the CSU leadership with the suspicion that they had staged a smear campaign against him during the election campaign. He asked for an appointment with the newly elected CSU party leader Horst Seehofer – and got it, at the end of October 2008.

Aiwanger saw a “campaign” by CSU people against him in 2008

“It’s true, he was with me,” Seehofer tells FOCUS online. He had only been head of the CSU for a few days. Aiwanger complained that there had been a “campaign” by CSU people against him during the election campaign. He made a note of it, says Seehofer, in order to investigate it. “Subjectively” he understood Aiwanger’s appearance with him as if Aiwanger was even proud to have made it into the Bavarian state parliament despite a campaign. After that he was “never employed again with this process, not for the whole ten years afterwards.”

Seehofer speaks respectfully about the opposition politician Aiwanger. From the opposition, he was the one who “had the greatest impact on me”. He never noticed him as a “right-wing extremist”.

At that time, the CSU man urgently wanted to get Aiwanger’s school files

On the basis of which information could Aiwanger complain to Seehofer about an alleged smear campaign against him? On October 25th there was a meeting of former students of the Burkhart-Gymnasium in Mallersberg-Pfaffenhofen from the Aiwanger class in 1993 in the Pritscher restaurant in Greilsberg, Lower Bavaria. The “Spiegel” reported on this.

Also present at the meeting: a CSU employee. Another topic that evening: Aiwanger’s remarkable political rise. And his, to put it mildly, obviously politically agitated school days. The CSU man said that Aiwanger’s school files had to be obtained urgently in order to “politically finish him off”. At least that’s what it said in a note that a member of the Free Voters, who was also at the table that evening, prepared for Aiwanger.

The “Spiegel” only writes that it was an “employee” of the CSU. The magazine does not give a name. According to information from FOCUS online, however, this employee was a communications officer from the press office of the CSU state leadership in Munich. His name is known to the editors. In any case, after and apparently as a result of the Seehofer-Aiwanger meeting, he wrote a note in which he rejected all allegations. That was the end of the case.

The scandal surrounding Aiwanger was the subject of the current meeting of the CDU and CSU in Schmallenberg in Sauerland, the home of the CDU party and parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz. He called the Aiwanger flyer, which Hubert Aiwanger’s brother claims to have written, “disgusting”, said at the conference that this could not be justified with the young age and urgently needed to be clarified.

Aiwanger could benefit from all the excitement around him

From the CSU part of the parliamentary group, the assumption was made that Aiwanger would benefit from all the excitement around him in the upcoming Bavarian state elections. At the closed meeting of the Union, it was noted that Aiwanger had received applause and encouraging shouts at public appearances since his – albeit brief – apology.

The Bavarian state election campaign will start next Monday – with a folk festival in Abensberg, the Gillamoos. Aiwanger will be touring and talking through the marquees there. It has been a home game for the People’s Tribune for many years.

According to participants, the prevailing assessment was that Bavaria’s head of government would not dismiss Aiwanger from his ministerial post – and he would certainly not get involved in a coalition with the Greens. Because then Söder would lose one of his main arguments in the election campaign: the positioning of the CSU and Bavaria against the traffic light coalition in Berlin. It was also registered with the Union that the Free Voters stood “like one” behind their chairman – i.e. would not sacrifice him for government participation in Bavaria.

We against them, closeness to the people against the establishment – Söder’s election campaign recipe against the traffic light coalition and especially against the Greens corresponds exactly to that which Aiwanger has been leading against the CSU for 15 years now. It has proven itself for him.