German police are investigating a death threat directed at 93-year-old Holocaust survivor and prominent Jewish community leader Charlotte Knobloch in Munich, Jerusalem News Syndicate reports
The threatening graffiti reportedly included Knobloch’s name, a Star of David and a reference to recent electoral gains by the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, prompting condemnation from Jewish and political figures.
A woman discovered the threat written on a park bench on Thursday and reported it to police. German media have not published its exact wording, but reports said it referred to Knobloch and the AfD and included a Star of David.
Following the discovery, Knobloch cancelled her planned appearance at a book launch taking place approximately two miles from where the graffiti was found.
Knobloch, who survived Nazi persecution as a child and now leads Munich’s Jewish community, has been an outspoken critic of the AfD and has previously called for the party to be banned.
The threat came shortly after the AfD made significant electoral gains in Saxony-Anhalt. The party received 43.8 percent of the vote in the state election, securing 39 seats in the regional parliament and falling just short of being able to form a majority government without a coalition partner.
Stephan Protschka, state chairman of the AfD’s Bavarian branch, unequivocally condemned the threat against Knobloch.
“I condemn the death threat against Charlotte Knobloch unequivocally and without reservation,” he said. “Political disagreements or election results can never justify threats, intimidation, or violence against a person. This applies, of course, especially if such a threat is motivated by antisemitism.”
Protschka acknowledged that the graffiti reportedly referred directly to his party’s electoral success but urged people to wait for investigators to establish who was responsible and their motives.
“We take very seriously the fact that the graffiti explicitly referenced the AfD’s election success in Saxony-Anhalt,” he said. “At the same time, the relevant authorities are investigating the perpetrator(s) and the background of the act. The results of this investigation should be awaited before any further conclusions are drawn.”
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, also condemned the threat and placed the incident within the broader context of antisemitism facing German Jews. He referred to violence against Jews, anti-Israel boycotts in universities and cultural institutions, and the growing political strength of the AfD.
“That a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor must witness Jews being beaten on the street, boycotted at universities and in the cultural sector, and the AfD growing stronger with its dangerous ideology, must be unbearable for her and for every Jew in Germany,” Prosor wrote on X.
Ludwig Spaenle, the Bavarian State Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and Against Antisemitism, said the threat had “crossed every line of decency”.
“To threaten a person who, after the Shoah, opened a door to this country’s return to the civilized world with her family in Munich and Germany, is more than just breaking a taboo,” Spaenle said.
He expressed hope that investigators would quickly identify those responsible and bring them to justice.
Knobloch has publicly challenged the AfD for several years. During a Holocaust commemoration at the Bavarian State Parliament in 2019, she departed from the usual convention of avoiding contemporary party politics at such events and directly criticised the party.
The “so-called Alternative for Germany bases its policy on hatred and exclusion,” she said at the time.
The AfD campaigns for tighter restrictions on immigration into Germany. The party has also faced repeated controversy over statements by some supporters and senior figures who have downplayed aspects of the Holocaust or Germany’s Nazi past.
The latest threat carries particular significance because of Knobloch’s personal history and her role in rebuilding Jewish life in post-war Germany.
Born in Munich, Knobloch was 10 years old in 1942 when her father, Fritz Neuland, arranged for her to hide with the family of a Catholic woman in a small town. Rumours circulated that Knobloch was the illegitimate daughter of the woman sheltering her, Kreszentia Hummel. Hummel did not deny the story, helping protect both herself and the Jewish child she was hiding from being reported to the Nazi authorities.
Knobloch’s mother had left the family when she was very young. Her father also survived the Holocaust, and father and daughter returned to Munich after the war.
They returned to a city where Jewish life had been devastated. Munich had been home to approximately 10,000 Jews in 1933, but almost none remained in the city following the Holocaust.
Knobloch subsequently became one of the central figures in the revival of Munich’s Jewish community. She helped lead efforts to integrate thousands of Jewish immigrants arriving from the former Soviet Union and later spearheaded the establishment of a new Jewish community centre and synagogue, which opened in 2006 at a cost of approximately $51 million.
The death threat against one of Germany’s most prominent Holocaust survivors has therefore raised concerns extending beyond the immediate safety of a single individual. It comes at a time when Jewish leaders continue to warn about antisemitic violence and intimidation in Germany, while Knobloch herself has spent decades working to rebuild the Jewish life that Nazi Germany attempted to destroy.
Photo credit: Leonhard Simon/Getty Images for DFB
More News
