Grappling with the dark Nazi past of his own family deeply shaped German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, he says in a new magazine interview set to be published on Thursday.
"Even as a teenager, I was intensively involved with the history of my family," Habeck told Bunte magazine.
Habeck's great-grandfather Walter Granzow (1887-1952) belonged to the innermost leadership circle of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's regime and was a close friend of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
He was also a brigade leader in the notorious Nazi SS paramilitary and was convicted as a war criminal after World War II.
Habeck's grandfather Kurt Granzow (1912-1952) was also a Nazi and held the high-ranking position of Obersturmführer in the SA stormtrooper paramilitary group.
"I often talked about [the family's Nazi past] with my grandmother and my mother," Habeck told the magazine. "It was a very personal confrontation with the guilt of my great-grandfather and my grandfather. This personal confrontation helped to shape my political thinking, actions and speeches and still holds me politically accountable today."
According to dpa information, none of Walter Granzow's assets were passed on to the family of Robert Habeck's mother because his property was confiscated without compensation as part of his war crimes conviction.
Habeck's mother grew up as a refugee child without any family wealth.
