Leading German Social Democrat makes Nazi comparison

A leading member of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) came under fire on Tuesday for comparing the conservative opposition's election platform with a Nazi slogan. Ludwig Stiegler, deputy head of the SPD's parliament group, said that the opposition's planned labor market reforms under the motto "Socially just is what creates jobs" reminded him of the Nazi slogan "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work will make you free"). Following calls for his resignation by leading members of the opposition and criticism within his own party, Stiegler apologized for his statement and declared that he should not have made this comparison. Shortly before the last election in 2002, then Justice minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SPD) had to resign having likened the tactics of US president George Bush to those of Adolf Hitler.