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Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff on Monday in Halle: "What happened last year would not have happened if there had been more reconciliation"
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / ZB
There has been criticism of the visit by the Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff (CDU), to the Jewish community in Halle.
The head of government visited the synagogue on Monday on Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday.
On Twitter, the Austrian visitor Christina Feist accuses Haseloff as well as Halle's mayor Bernd Wiegand (independent) and the victim commissioner Edgar Franke (SPD) of having disrupted the celebrations with their appearance.
They would not have adhered to the Jewish code of conduct.
A Christian representative would also have made comments on excerpts from the Torah reading.
"I left the prayer room stunned and irritated," writes Feist, who is a joint plaintiff in the trial against the assassin Stephan Balliet.
Haseloff and the other speakers had disrupted the ceremony around 12 noon, which was exactly the time when the assassin tried to break into the synagogue last year.
The appearance of the visitors was a "PR showpiece of the Christian majority society".
She also criticizes a sentence that Haseloff said in his speech: "What happened last year would not have happened if there had been more reconciliation."
The chairman of the Jewish community, Max Privorozki, rejects the criticism.
The time was agreed with the Prime Minister.
"I have no criticism of Mr Haseloff and can only deny what Mrs Feist says on Twitter. We are very happy about the visit of the head of government," said Privorozki.
He couldn't remember whether Herr Haseloff had spoken of reconciliation.
"That would be a bit misleading."
"A sentence like that in this context is simply forbidden."
Henriette Quade, member of the state parliament of the left in Saxony-Anhalt
A spokesman for the Saxony-Anhalt State Chancellery told SPIEGEL about the PR allegation that no press work was done on the date.
And regarding the term "reconciliation": "With the term reconciliation, Mr. Haseloff did not mean the relationship between Jews and Christians, but spoke of the assassin and his environment."
The process brought the realization that the assassin was already a loner in his youth and that those around him let this irreconcilability persist with him.
The SPD politician Igor Matviyets, who is also a member of the Jewish community in Halle, finds the choice of words unhappy.
"The word 'reconciliation' in this context is simply irritating. The impression arises that a dad is exhorting two arguing children, here Jewish women and Nazis, to peace Address Saxony-Anhalt, "he says.
The Berlin poet and book author Max Czollek also criticizes Haseloff's statement:
"Even if he didn't mean the sentence like that, it shows that some could understand him that way. Such a sentence in this context is simply forbidden," says the left-wing member of the state parliament Henriette Quade.
On Twitter, Christina Feist also accused the Prime Minister of having come to the appointment with a cell phone in hand, even though the use of technical devices in the synagogue was prohibited for the celebration of Yom Kippur.
Haseloff's spokesman said that the Prime Minister did not have a cell phone in hand, but a Bible.
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