The Simson moped as a political issue: first the descendants of the Jewish Simson family criticized the AfD's appropriation of the brand - now the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke is fighting back. Höcke has repeatedly had himself photographed on machines of the traditional East German brand and mentioned it in election campaign speeches. He has now called the statements made by the family's descendants "disconcerting".
"Interpreting the use of everyday objects as 'appropriation' replaces arguments with symbolic hysteria," said Höcke. "This is precisely where the 'never again!' should apply: no collective attribution, no suspicion of a certain mindset, no political hereditary guilt." Since the Second World War, the phrase "never again" has mostly been used in connection with "never again fascism" or "never again war". Höcke reinterprets it here.
