During a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial with German and Polish trainees, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, commented on today's TV duel between CDU politician Mario Voigt and Björn Höcke of the AfD:

"Survivors of the German concentration camps and their descendants are angry, sad and disillusioned by the fact that on the day of the liberation of Buchenwald, of all days, a CDU politician is creating a forum for one of Germany's reputed right-wing extremist agitators, his ideology and his aggressive theories on a renowned television station.

Mr. Höcke and his like-minded cronies will be highly amused by the naivety of the "old parties" and democrats as he celebrates this triumphant return to the stage of the "lying press", which he and his party repeatedly defame.

On this day commemorating the liberation of Buchenwald, the survivors have very clear memories of Höcke's repeated frontal attacks against the culture of remembrance, which they solidly support, and against the memorials which democratic society fought for and created. They can definitely envisage what Thuringia or Germany would look like if the voters were to enable Mr Höcke and his party to shape the country, and what they themselves would be facing in that kind of Germany."