German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel says views expressed by anti-refugee political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) sound very similar to those of his father who was a Nazi to his last breath.
Gabriel, who is also Germanys minister for economic affairs and energy, made the remarks during an interview with the Funke Media Group published on Sunday.
He stressed that the right-wing party was trying to provoke a reaction via its continuous string of outrageous remarks concerning refugees and Muslims.
Everything that they are saying, Ive already heard just to be clear from my own father, who was a Nazi to his last breath, he stressed.
Fueled by Europes refugee crisis and rising anger against German Chancellor Angela Merkels asylum policy — according to which over a million refugees have entered Germany — the rise of AfD gained momentum following a double-digit percentage victory in the parliamentary elections in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saxony-Anhalt.
They want to go back to the repressed old West German republic of the 1960s, when women were still at home and foreigners, gays and lesbians had to be invisible, and where old army songs were sung over a beer in the evening, Gabriel (seen below) added.
In April, the AfD sparked widespread controversy when it announced that Islam is not compatible with the German constitution.
At the time, Gabriel noted that the AfDs calls are reminiscent of those by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.
The AfDs rise coincides with similar gains in other European anti-refugee parties such as Frances National Front.
Europe is facing its worst refugee crisis since the end of World War II as vast numbers of asylum seekers fleeing conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East try to gain access to the continent.
The refugee crisis in Europe and a series of Daesh related terrorist attacks across the globe have led to the rise of Islamaphobia among racists and xenophobes in the West.
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