On Thursday (29), President Jair Bolsonaro played down the criticisms he received for having met at the Palácio do Planalto, off the agenda, the far-right German MP Beatrix von Storch, vice-president of the party populist AfD (Alternative for Germany) and granddaughter of Nazi Germany’s finance minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk.
“Can’t I receive this MP? She was democratically elected in Germany.” He hinted to supporters that he did not know the MP’s parentage and said it was wrong to judge a person for mistakes of his ancestors.
“Last week there was a Chilean MP and a German MP visiting the presidency there. Wow, I treated, spoke, discussed. It’s just that the German MP is the granddaughter of a former Hitler minister. Damn, they blew me up in the press. you can’t connect a parent to a child. A lot of times, well, one did the wrong thing, connect the other, ” did he declare.
The statements were posted on a pocket page on YouTube.
The ultra-right was with Bolsonaro on the 22nd. The meeting with him was not on the official agenda of the presidency, but Beatrix published a photo of the meeting on Monday (26). In the image, the husband of the German woman, Sven Von Storch, also appears.
“Now, if I go to see the file of each person assisted, it will first take hours to attend. Just as I received here the deputy Luis Miranda (DEM-DF),” said Bolsonaro.
Miranda and her brother, the Department of Health server, had a meeting with Bolsonaro on March 20, when they alerted the president to possible irregularities in the purchase of Covaxin.
When posting the image with Bolsonaro, Beatrix said in a text that she was impressed by the Brazilian president’s “clear understanding” of “the problems in Europe and the current political challenges.”
“At a time when the left is advancing its ideology on a global scale through its networks and international organizations, we, the conservatives, must also work more together and defend our conservative values at the international level,” he said. declared.
The MP was in Brasilia last week. On the occasion, she met MEPs Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP) and Bia Kicis (PSL-DF), who shared photos of the diaries on their social networks – and were criticized for the xenophobic and anti-immigration record. Beatrix, who has already been investigated for inciting hatred against Muslims.
On the same day as the meeting with Bolsonaro, the deputy was with Minister Marcos Pontes (Science, Technology and Innovations). The meeting was recorded in the official agenda of the Minister and in images published in the Flickr profile of the file.
The meeting of the deputy leader of the AfD party with Bolsonaro was publicized by the deputy of state of São Paulo Gil Diniz (no party), as the chronicle Mônica Bergamo shows.
In 2018, German police asked Beatrix to be investigated after she was posted on social media. At the time, she questioned the decision of the Cologne city police to publish messages in Arabic as part of a multilingual campaign.
The parliamentarian said: “What is wrong with this country? (…) Are they trying to please the barbarians, the Muslims and this horde of rapists?” Twitter and Facebook deleted the posts, classified as hate speech.
Kinship and the xenophobic flags it offers were highlighted on social networks after the publications of Eduardo Bolsonaro and Kicis.
In response to one of Bia Kicis’ publications on Beatrix’s visit, the Holocaust Museum recalled the trajectory of the German deputy.
“The concern and concern that this rapprochement between such a Brazilian parliamentary figure and Beatrix von Storch represents for the efforts to build a collective memory of the Holocaust in Brazil and for our own democracy is evident. “
The Brazil-Israel Institute (IBI) issued a note of repudiation regarding Bolsonaro’s meeting with the German. “As opposed to a union of world conservatives to defend Christian values and the family, as Bia Kicis suggests, these meetings are more like a union of far-right politicians of no importance on the world stage. a castaway, “said the Brazil-Israel Institute in a note, signed by the executive coordinator of the IBI, Rafael Kruchin.
Openly anti-immigration and with a history of xenophobic postures, the AfD party is the first party represented in Parliament to be indicted by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV, in its German acronym), for suspicion of extremism and ultimately a risk to democracy.
All of the legendary positions mean that the AfD is not well regarded by a large part of the international community. There have been few international meetings of the acronym – the leaders of the legend have already met the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko; with Russian President Vladimir Putin; and with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to the information of the German channel Deutsche Welle.
The American Jewish Committee, an organization seen as a representative of the Jewish community in the United States, expressed concern after the meeting. On her social media, the AJC wrote that it is joining the Conib (Confederação Israelita do Brasil) in expressing its concern about Beatrix’s visit and that the racist and xenophobic AfD platform does not has no place in Brazil.