Obama’s great-uncle Charles Payne has confirmed what we all already suspected: that Obama had no interest in his part in the liberation of Buchenwald until he had to use it for political reasons.

Barack Obama’s great uncle offered some blunt language as to why his nephew is visiting the memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp next week during his trip to Europe and the Middle East.

“This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I’m sure, but for political reasons,” Charles Payne told the German magazine Spiegel. “Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”

… Payne, 84, is no stranger to Americans: The Obama campaign used his WWII experiences last year to burnish the candidate’s all-American upbringing. But Obama made a gaffe when he said his great uncle liberated Auschwitz. In fact, Payne was part of the force that liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, in April 1945.

Payne told Spiegel that he was shocked to see his war experience, especially his “liberation” of a concentration camp, used in campaign commercials. He said he had never spoken with his nephew about the matter, nor did Obama ever express any interest in Payne’s experience.

“I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany,” Payne said. “We had never talked about that before.”

… “I am unable to tell you what I was thinking then. That was a long time ago, and as I told you, until Barack misspoke, I hadn’t thought about any of this for a very, very long time,” Payne said.

“They were the enemy, evil incarnate, and we were the good guys coming to save the world. We were all for the war. We all wanted to be in it. That doesn’t mean we enjoyed being in it, though,” he said. He then described his experiences in Europe.

… Payne said he doesn’t like to think about it, and hadn’t for a long time until Obama’s gaffe caused all the harsh memories of that time to come back in force.

“You know, I am unable to tell you what I was thinking then,” Payne said. “That was a long time ago, and as I told you, until Barack misspoke, I hadn’t thought about any of this for a very, very long time. In fact, I guess I prefer not to think about it. I can assure you I was horrified by the lengths to which men will go to mistreat other men. This was, to me, almost unbelievable. There was more: There were sheds full of dead bodies that had been stripped and thrown in and then stacked up on top of each other. I don’t know how many, but many high and the whole length of the room. They sprinkled lime to keep the smell down. That’s about the extent that I remember actually seeing.

“I am puzzled by intelligent people who stand by and allow their country to be taken over and run by extreme radical types,” Payne said. “I’m still somewhat puzzled by that. And I am fully aware that it could happen and has almost happened in this country. You know, I lived through the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when it was getting dangerously close to that sort of thing.”

How unsurprising. I wouldn’t imagine that Obama would ever be interested in someone who has led a far more courageous and inspiring life than his own, and would only care when it was most advantageous to himself. He’s an opportunistic, narcissistic socialist. Why would he care about about his great-uncle’s experience, or about how discussing it on national TV might make his great-uncle feel?

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit