Politician named Adolf Hitler becomes focal point of local election campaign

A Namibian local politician named Adolf Hitler Uunona is widely expected to retain his council seat in the country’s latest round of regional elections, drawing international attention for a name he says carries no ideological meaning.

A longtime member of Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party, he is running again in the Ompundja constituency in the northern Oshana region. While final tallies have not yet been released, several international outlets report he is projected to win by a wide margin, consistent with previous elections. SWAPO, which has governed Namibia since independence in 1990, has shifted from its socialist liberation roots toward a more centrist, market-oriented governing approach.

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Adolf Hitler Uunona, a Namibian local politician, is widely expected to retain his council seat, drawing global attention for a name he says has no link to extremist beliefs.

His German dictator-linked name — “Adolf Hitler” — was given to him by his father, he told the German outlet Bild, who he claimed did not understand the historical weight the name carried.

“It was a perfectly normal name for me when I was a kid,” Uunona told Bild. “It wasn’t until I grew older that I realized this man wanted to subjugate the whole world and killed millions of Jews.”

A police officer stands in front of a cache of Nazi artifacts discovered in 2017, during a press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. Argentine authorities found the cache in a secret room behind a bookcase and had uncovered the collection in the course of a wider investigation into artwork of suspicious origin found at a gallery in Buenos Aires. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

He said his childhood name reflected no political intent and stressed that he has never held extremist beliefs. “The fact I have this name does not mean I want to conquer Oshana,” he said, adding in earlier interviews that he generally goes by Adolf Uunona in daily life.

Namibia was a German colony from 1884 to 1915, and Germanic names and place names remain common in some communities. Historians note that this legacy sometimes results in unusual or jarring combinations by modern standards, though they carry no inherent ideological meaning.

Namibia flags. Getty Images (Getty Images)

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According to official information from the Oshana regional government, the Ompundja constituency has 4,659 inhabitants, 19 administrative centers, and covers 466 square kilometers.