Adolf Hitler wins election
African whose father named him after the Führer tops poll
A BLACK African politician named after Adolf Hitler won a l andslide election victory – but insists he has no plans for world domination.
Adolf Hitler Uunona was elected with 85% of the vote in regional elections in Namibia.
The country, a former German colony, i s home to a small German- speaking community and where a number of streets, places and people still bear German names. After winning the seat on the ticket of the ruling SWAPO party – which has led Namibia since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 – the politician declared he had ‘ nothing to do with’ Nazi ideology.
‘My father named me after this man,’ he said. ‘He probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for. As a child I saw it as a totally normal name. Only as a teenager did I understand this man wanted to conquer the whole world.’
He said his wife calls him Adolf, adding that he usually goes by Adolf Uunona but it was ‘too late’ to change his name officially.
‘The fact I have this name does not mean I want to conquer Oshana,’ he said, referring to t he r egion where he won the election.
‘It doesn’t mean I’m striving for world domination.’
Mr Uunona won 1,196 votes in the election compared to 213 for his opponent, returning him to a seat which he previously won in 2015.
His name was abbreviated to ‘Adolf H’ in a list of candidates in a government gazette, but appears in full on an official results website.
Once known as German South West Africa, Namibia was a colony from 1884 until Germany was stripped of i ts i mperial possessions at the end of the First World War.
German soldiers slaughtered tens of thousands of tribespeople between 1904 and 1908 to suppress a revolt in which 123
‘As a child I saw it as a normal name’ ‘Germany’s special responsibility’
settlers died. The killings came after the tribes were forced off their l and and recruited as forced labour.
The German government says it has a ‘ special responsibility’ towards Namibia ‘on account of t he t wo countries’ shared colonial past’.