A local councilor in the Ompundja region in northern Namibia, Adolf Hitler Uunona, has announced his intention to stand again in local elections.
Uunona, a longtime representative of Namibia’s ruling South West African Peoples Organization (SWAPO) party, has been the representative of the Ompundja region since 2004.
Uunona retained his post, winning about 85% of the vote in the last election. He confirmed in an interview with the German newspaper Bild that he would run for a fifth term in local elections on November 26.
In a 2020 interview, Uunona said that his father named him after the dictator, but “probably didn’t even know what the name Adolf Hitler meant.”
The politician noted that he only uses the name Hitler on official documents and on ballot papers. According to him, as a child this name seemed normal to him. But as he grew up, he learned the truth about Hitler.
The SWAPO party, which has been in power since March 21, 1990, when Namibia gained independence, is known as a former liberation movement that fought against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The party has won every national election held since independence. Uunona has been a member of the party for many years.
The SWAPO Party’s struggle was formed in the shadow of Namibia’s harsh colonial past.
As a result of the massacres committed by Germany from 1904-1908, considered the first genocide of the 20th century, the Herero people lost at least 70% of their population, and the Nama people lost at least 50%.
In 2018, Germany returned to Namibia the skulls of 25 people killed during the genocide. In 2021, the Berlin government recognized the crimes committed during that period as genocide, but refused to pay compensation, instead pledging about $1.3 billion over 30 years for development projects in the country.