A politician in the southern African country of Namibia by the name of Adolf Hitler Uunona is expected to retain his seat in a local election on November 26. In the 2020 elections in the country, Uunona won 85 percent of the vote, per the New York Post.
Following the member of the left-wing Swapo party’s 2020 win in the Ompundja constituency, he told the German paper Bild, "my father named me after this man. He probably didn’t even understand what Adolf Hitler stood for."
He later added, "for me, as a child, it was a perfectly normal name. Only as I grew up did I understand: this man wanted to conquer the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things."
He said that while his wife calls him Adolf, he usually goes by Adolf Uunona in public, omitting the "Hitler" part to the name. He said that "it’s too late" to change his name, saying that "it’s in all official documents."
The German paper noted that the first name Adolf is not uncommon in the former colony of German South West Africa, with German-language papers and street names being common. Prior to the 2020 election, a car had been spotted in Uunona’s home region of Oshana with the name Adolf Hitler written on its rear window above a swastika. Uunona claimed that the car did not belong to him.
Namibia came under South African control after World War One and gained independence in 1990. The Swapo party rose out of Namibia’s independence movement and has ruled the southern African country since 1990.
