German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose grandfather was a member of the Nazi Party, has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.
Merz’s maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, served as mayor of Brilon in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia from 1917 to 1937. Initially a member of the conservative Center Party, Sauvigny joined Hitler’s NSDAP after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s.
Speaking at a Christian Democratic Union conference in Munich on Sunday, Merz accused Putin of seeking to restore the borders of the Soviet Union.