Would-Be Mayor Defends Infamous Nazi War Criminal

"I want to assure the public that I don’t and never did support the Nazis" is a clarification you should never find yourself needing to make during a political campaign. Unfortunately, it's the exact statement Argentinian mayoral candidate Carmen Bretin Lindemann was forced to issue Thursday after dropping out of the race, Haaretz reports. According to the Jerusalem Post, Bretin Lindemann is the daughter-in-law of infamous Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for wiping out Jews in Hungary during WWII. While that's not exactly her fault, she certainly didn't have to go on television and defend his actions.

“The history that you know is not the real one," the Post quotes Bretin Lindemann saying during an interview Wednesday. "The version that you know from movies and books is written by the Jews, and all the world accepts that history." In addition, Haaretz reports she referred to Eichmann as "grandpa" during the interview and said he wasn't a bad person because he didn't personally kill anyone and was just following orders. Bretin Lindemann was roundly criticized for her comments and booted from her political party, leading her to withdraw her candidacy for mayor of Garupa. Eichmann—the inspiration for the term "the banality of evil"—was executed for crimes against humanity in 1962 in Israel. (More Adolf Eichmann stories.)