"Once Hitler was chancellor, he staged a coup d'état; in Catalonia, it was also staged from the institutions themselves". This was the comparison made by former Spanish foreign minister José Manuel García Margallo between the Catalan referendum last October 1st and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, assuring that in both cases what he called a "coup d'état" took place from within the institutions of government.
Margallo, foreign minister under Mariano Rajoy unitl 2016, gave this response during an interview on Spanish private TV network La Sexta, having being asked about the decision of judges in the Schleswig-Holstein land to discard the accusation of rebellion from the European arrest warrant issued for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
"German justice got it wrong from the top to the bottom", criticised Margallo, commenting that Germany is the first country "that should learn from its history" - also referring to Hitler.
However, Margallo recommended waiting to see what the German justice system would finally decide and not taking anything for granted.