Archival records challenge chancellor Merz’s account of his grandfather’s Nazi past

For decades, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has offered a carefully circumscribed account of his family history during the Nazi era.

At its center is his grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, a longtime mayor in North Rhine–Westphalia who was also a committed member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party—far more actively involved, according to archival records, than Merz has publicly acknowledged.

Documents housed in the State Archive of North Rhine–Westphalia identify Sauvigny as a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) as of May 1, 1937, under membership number 4258218. Crucially, the same personnel file indicates that Sauvigny applied for party membership between May 1933 and February 1936, during the formative years of the Nazi dictatorship. These records contradict Merz’s repeated claims that his grandfather became a Nazi “without his own intervention.”

At the time, Nazi Party membership was not automatic. Admission required a formal, handwritten application, the applicant’s personal signature, and—in most cases—documentary proof of “Aryan” ancestry, known as the Ariernachweis. Archival materials confirm that Sauvigny signed his own application, a prerequisite for acceptance into the party. The existence of this signed document directly undermines later assertions that his membership occurred passively or involuntarily.

The files further describe Sauvigny as having been “zealously” and “fanatically” active in the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party’s paramilitary organization responsible for political violence, intimidation, and the violent dismantling of democratic institutions in the early 1930s.

A February 1936 assessment by a local Nazi Party official states that Sauvigny had been “fanatically active as an SA man from the very beginning.” Another document notes that he supported the Nazi Party “as much as possible.”

Sauvigny served as mayor of the town of Brilon from 1917 to 1937, spanning the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, and the consolidation of the Nazi dictatorship. Contemporary local reporting praised his administration for governing “in the spirit of National Socialism.” During his tenure, Brilon renamed streets in honor of Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring—actions that required mayoral approval and reflected ideological alignment with the regime.

When the Nazi Party temporarily froze new admissions in the mid-1930s to stem the influx of opportunistic careerists, Sauvigny’s application remained under consideration. A local Nazi Ortsgruppenleiter (district leader) wrote approvingly of Sauvigny’s “national attitude” and favorable relationship with the party, which ultimately facilitated his admission once the ban was lifted in 1937.

After World War II, Sauvigny appeared before a denazification commission, established in 1946 to assess individual culpability in the Nazi system. Like many former Nazis, he portrayed his involvement as limited and circumstantial.

Several of Friedrich Merz’s later public statements closely mirror his grandfather’s postwar self-exonerating testimony, suggesting reliance on these narratives rather than archival evidence. Merz’s own public position has shifted over time.

In 2004, after media reporting forced the issue into the open, he acknowledged for the first time that his grandfather had been a Nazi, reversing earlier denials. Even then, he insisted that Sauvigny had resisted party membership and been transferred into the NSDAP from the SA “without any action of his own.”

Archival records directly contradict both claims.

In subsequent years, Merz continued to downplay his grandfather’s role. In a 2025 podcast interview with Die Zeit, he described Sauvigny as having “fallen into the abyss of Nazism,” language that again implied passivity. Asked whether his grandfather’s Nazi past had been known within the family, Merz replied, “Yes, of course”—a statement at odds with his earlier public denials and raising questions about when he himself became aware of the full extent of that history.

The issue has also intersected with Merz’s own political career. In 2003, while a senior figure in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Merz publicly called for what he termed the “storming of the red town hall” in Brilon, urging the removal of a democratically elected progressive local government.

Critics at the time noted the historical resonance of the phrase, echoing the SA’s violent seizures of municipal power in 1933. Merz reportedly invoked his grandfather’s legacy in this context, drawing a symbolic line between past and present.

Since that episode, Merz has repeatedly failed in attempts to win the Brilon mayoralty—an office his grandfather once held under the Nazi regime. The comparison has fueled local criticism that Merz selectively venerates his grandfather’s authority while evading responsibility for the ideological context in which it was exercised.

Journalistic scrutiny has consistently met resistance. Merz has said he was “disgusted” by reporters who investigated his grandfather’s Nazi past. His party’s press office maintains that no “new findings” have emerged since 2004, despite the availability of archival documents that were not previously publicized.

Requests for comment from outlets such as taz and inquiries timed to the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism have gone unanswered.

When questioned by an Associated Press reporter about his grandfather, Merz responded sharply, calling the inquiry an “inappropriate comparison.” Critics argue that such reactions reflect a broader unwillingness to confront uncomfortable historical realities—particularly as Germany grapples with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and renewed debates about historical responsibility.

Despite mounting evidence, Merz continues to describe his grandfather as “an impressive personality and a successful mayor.” For historians and critics, the case exemplifies how Nazi-era biographies are still contested in German public life—and how selective memory, familial loyalty, and political calculation can obscure documented historical facts.

The archival record leaves little ambiguity: Josef Paul Sauvigny was not a passive bystander but an active participant and beneficiary of the Nazi system. Whether Germany’s chancellor will fully reckon with that legacy remains an open question.