Bishop Williamson's views receive support from a surprising quarter

Berühmter Sohn: SPD-Chef Sigmar Gabriel lässt kranken Vater allein | Politik & Wirtschaft - Berliner Kurier

Ahrensburg, just outside Hamburg. Here, in a neat retirement home, lives the 91-year-old Walter Gabriel. In his working life, he was an official in the county council administration of Bad Oldesloe. But only in the home, it is known that the old man in a wheelchair is the father of the SPD chairman - of the man who will perhaps become Chancellor of Germany in 2013. Visits from his famous son, however he never gets. Not even now, after the 52-year-old politician has become a father for the second time.

Human and ideologically the father and son are separated by worlds. Because Walter Gabriel is an unrepentant right-wing radical who has subscribed to the Nazi house magazine "„National-Zeitung“". "Yes, I read it. Why not? "He says to the COURIER. And once under way, he gets going properly. About the Holocaust: "I have great doubts it. And there are famous people, such as the (SSPX member - the editor) Bishop Williamson who deny all of this. They cannot all be wrong? "

"We live in a democratic dictatorship."

His son is the head of the largest opposition party, but Walter Gabriel does not that the Federal Republic is a democratic system: "We live in a democratic dictatorship. There are too many foreigners. We let them all in, no matter who they are. Especially those who then dip into our pockets. "

The estrangement from his son still seems to grieve him, "I have done nothing but good for the boy ... I would have been glad if he would come again. But, if he does not want to, I also do not want it anymore, "said Gabriel to the COURIER. In May 2005, they saw each other one last time, the gap that separates them is deep - and much older.

1962, Sigmar was three years old and his parents separated. Against his will, Sigmar remained with his father and was cared for by his grandmother. 1968 Sigmar was obliged to follow the father to the Hamburg area, although the mother had been awarded custody. The son suffered and never forgave his father.

"I am dying," complains Walter Gabriel who is suffering from a tumour in the head. But Sigmar Gabriel, who is a professed Lutheran, is apparently not thinking of a reconciliation. All questions about his father remain unanswered.