Elon Musk faces criticism for encouraging Germans to maneuver past ‘previous guilt’

Contemporary off an issue over a gesture many noticed as a Nazi salute, tech billionaire Elon Musk appeared just about at a marketing campaign occasion for a far-right German political social gathering on Saturday, the place he urged listeners to not be ashamed of their nation’s historical past.

Musk — the top of President Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity — was met with roars of applause from the greater than 4,000 attendees gathered within the German metropolis of Halle as he appeared on display screen at a rally for the Different für Deutschland (AfD) social gathering.

“I think you really are the best hope for Germany,” Musk informed them.

Musk was launched by social gathering co-leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel, whom he endorsed and praised effusively throughout a greater than hour-long dialog live-streamed earlier this month on X, the social media platform he owns.

Since Germany’s president dissolved parliament in December, he has accused Musk of attempting to intrude in Germany’s nationwide elections, that are scheduled for Feb. 23.

Musk, the world’s richest man, has waded into politics in different European nations, throwing his help behind far-right leaders corresponding to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and trolling Britain’s center-left authorities.

On Saturday, Musk spoke repeatedly concerning the significance of Germans taking satisfaction of their heritage.

“It’s good to be proud of German culture and German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Musk stated.

Then, in an obvious reference to the Nazi period, Musk added that there’s “frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that.”

“Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their parents, their great-grandparents,” he stated as the group applauded.

Musk’s feedback got here two days earlier than Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Day — this yr marking the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz — and fewer than per week after he twice made straight-armed gestures at a Trump inauguration occasion, which many viewers interpreted as Nazi salutes.

As debate over Musk’s actions and intentions ensued final week, he responded with a sequence of Nazi-themed puns in a submit on X. He is now going through a recent spherical of criticism from Jewish leaders and Western politicians for his feedback over the weekend.

Musk didn’t instantly reply after NPR reached out for remark.

Abraham Foxman, director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), wrote in a tweet that Musk’s speech “helps place the hand gesture in perspective.” Whereas the ADL downplayed Musk’s movement as an “awkward gesture” final week, Foxman disagreed, referring to it as a Nazi salute and “very disconcerting image.”

“The words we heard from the main actors of the AfD rally about ‘Great Germany’ and ‘the need to forget German guilt for Nazi crimes’ sounded all too familiar and ominous,” tweeted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “Especially only hours before the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.”

Musk’s critics say Holocaust remembrance is about duty, not guilt 

The Holocaust — throughout which Nazis murdered 6 million European Jews — stays a extremely delicate topic in Germany.

Its authorities has gone to nice lengths to protect and confront that historical past, together with by 1000’s of memorials and museums, obligatory faculty curricula and strict legal guidelines prohibiting Holocaust denial and dissemination of Nazi propaganda.

Lots of Musk’s critics described his feedback about “past guilt” as being at odds with Holocaust remembrance.

“Contrary to [Musk’s] advice, the remembrance and acknowledgement of the dark past of the country and its people should be central in shaping the German society,” tweeted Dani Dayan, the chair of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Middle situated in Israel. “Failing to do so is an insult to the victims of Nazism and a clear danger to the democratic future of Germany.”

The ADL reiterated that message, including that Holocaust remembrance is about schooling, commemoration and historic duty, not “guilting or shaming today’s Germany.”

Others drew an much more direct line between Holocaust remembrance and trendy German politics — which, in September, noticed AfD develop into the first far-right social gathering to win a state election because the Nazi period.

“Yes there is an historic guilt, not an individual one, but there is an individual responsibility for learning from history,” Miguel Berger, Germany’s ambassador to the U.Okay., informed BBC Radio 4. “And learning from history means not only that we have to keep the memory alive, but that we have to stand up for rule of law against populism, against extremism.”

The AfD’s excessive views have alienated many in Germany

The AfD has gained floor in German politics regardless of appreciable controversy.

It was based in 2013 as an anti-European Union social gathering, however has since radicalized right into a nationalist, anti-immigrant social gathering that goals “to eliminate the free democratic basic order,” the ADL says, citing a 2023 report by the German Institute for Human Rights.

Germany’s home intelligence company has put the social gathering beneath surveillance, labeled it as “suspected extremist” in 2021, and categorised its youth wing as extremist in 2023. A court docket upheld these designations final yr.

The social gathering’s leaders in varied German states have been accused of trivializing the Holocaust, from staging a walkout throughout a 2019 memorial service to repeatedly utilizing banned Nazi slogans to posting marketing campaign flyers designed as “deportation tickets” forward of February’s election.

Whereas AfD is polling in second place, the opposite mainstream political events refuse to govern in coalition with the social gathering due to its excessive views. Many German voters have expressed their opposition as properly.

On Saturday, the identical day Musk spoke on the rally, tens of 1000’s of individuals took to the streets in Berlin and different German cities to protest the rise of the AfD and far-right generally.