A German comedian has come under attack from neo-Nazis after his tearful admission on a talk show that his father committed crimes as a soldier during the Second World War.
Atze Schröder told a Holocaust survivor during the programme that his father had “done horrible things as a soldier. He told me about them later.”
He said there were “many tragedies in our family that were swept under the rug”, and that several relatives — including his grandmother and several uncles — had committed suicide after Nazi Germany capitulated.
Eva Szepesi, the Auschwitz survivor who also appeared on the Markus Lanz show last week, said she found the admission “absolutely extraordinary”, JTA reported.
Mr Schröder apologised to her during the programme, adding his father “would probably apologize if he were sitting here.”
He then reached out to take Ms Szepesi’s hand saying: “I am sorry. We must never forget.”
Ms Szepesi, 87, was seen smiling as he took his hand.
But right-wing extremists have taunted Mr Schröder for a “betrayal of his father”, calling him a “mentally impotent rat” and an “embarrassing, disgusting slave to the system”, the news website RND reported.
Mr Schröder, whose birth name is Hubertus Albers, told Bild Zeitung after his appearance that his father had not been a Nazi party member.
But he said he had driven a tank after being drafted into the Wehrmacht and subsequently spent six years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp.
He said the apology was on behalf of his father, who died in 2011 aged 87, for the war crimes committed by Wehrmacht soldiers.
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