Father's Nazi past haunts Chilean presidential frontrunner

A recently revealed identification card shows that the German-born father of Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast belonged to  Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party

BERLIN -- The German-born father of Chilean presidential frontrunner José Antonio Kast was a member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, according to a recently unearthed document obtained by The Associated Press, revelations that appear at odds with the far-right candidate's own statements about his father's military service during World War II.

German officials confirmed this week that an ID card in the country's Federal Archive shows that an 18-year-old named Michael Kast joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP, on Sept. 1, 1942, at the height of Hitler's war on the Soviet Union.

While the Federal Archive couldn’t confirm whether Kast was the presidential contender's father, the date and place of birth listed on the card matches that of Kast's father, who died in 2014. A copy of the ID card, identified with the membership number 9271831, was previously posted on social media on Dec. 1 by Chilean journalist Mauricio Weibel.

The ID card's emergence adds a new twist to a highly charged presidential runoff billed on both side as a battle of extremes — between communism and freedom, authoritarianism and democracy — and marked by a steady flow of disinformation that has distorted the record and campaign pledges of Kast's opponent.