Posted on 01/27/2025 8:56:14 AM PST by Miami Rebel
(JTA) — Days after stoking controversy by delivering what some believed to be a Nazi salute and making Holocaust jokes, Elon Musk appeared at a campaign rally for a far-right German political party to tell supporters to be proud of their heritage.
Musk’s appearance Saturday at the rally for Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, was unadvertised and came by video. It was the second time in as many weeks that the world’s richest man and close ally of new U.S. President Donald Trump has appeared alongside Alice Weidel, the party’s candidate for chancellor in Germany’s Feb. 23 election.
During his speech, Musk told a cheering crowd of 4,500 that he believed the AfD was “the best hope for Germany.” He also alluded to Germany’s history.
“There is too much 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 great-grandparents,” Musk said.
He added that he believed the party could “preserve” and “protect” German culture, which he implied was facing a threat.
“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Musk said.
The rally is set to be AfD’s largest before next month’s elections, in which the party is polling in second place. The rally took place in Halle, the eastern Germany city where a far-right extremist attacked a synagogue on Yom Kippur in 2019.
Musk’s appearance at the rally comes days after he twice made a straight-armed gesture at a Trump inauguration event that ignited comparisons to the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute. After some arbiters of antisemitism said they would give him the benefit of the doubt, Musk posted a series of Holocaust jokes on X, the social network that he owns.
The entire saga followed Musk’s recent endorsement of AfD, which has found increasing traction in Germany with its anti-immigrant, pro-Russia and anti-European Union platform. Some of its politicians have also downplayed the Holocaust, and German courts have fined one of its regional leaders, Björn Höcke, multiple times for using the Nazi-era phrase “Alles für Deutschland,” or Everything for Germany.
Musk hosted Weidel for a livestream on X earlier this month. During the call, Weidel falsely claimed that Adolf Hitler was a communist in a bid to distance AfD’s politics from the Nazis’.
Musk’s appearance at the AfD rally caused at least some Jews who said they had previously given Musk the benefit of the doubt to condemn him.
“There I was. Joining the chorus calling the left ridiculous because of a poorly orchestrated arm gesture. And then this happens, coupled with a few Holocaust zingers on Twitter in terrible taste, and now, I’m not so sure who is ridiculous, or if in fact we are all being played,” Blake Flayton, a pro-Israel influencer, posted on Instagram.
Musk's joking minimization of the Nazi past and his cozying up to a party rooted in anti-semitism are despicable. AfD party leaders speak rhapsodically of Vaterland and Volk, buzzwords the Nazis regularly deployed, and have decried the Berlin Holocaust Memorial as a laughable abomination.
Another dishonest “nazi salute” reference. I hate these people.
Where, exactly, did Musk joke about the Holocaust?
>> caused at least some Jews ... to condemn him.
whatever — self-importance trumps the sober reality every time
Google search: site:forward.com “far right”
About 23,900 results
Google search: site:forward.com “far left”
About 1,560 results
And yet another reference to the "far-right".
“Where, exactly, did Musk joke about the Holocaust?”
___________________________________________________
Tweeted Musk last week: “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies.”
“His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,” and added a laughing emoji.
“German values”
Militarism
Mass murder
The Sprockets
I am not seeing a joke about killing millions of people in there. Was there another post where he joked about the murder of millions of human beings?
Yes, they love their land and their people. So do I. So do Israelis.
Is there something wrong with that?
Or, to put it another way, if they DO NOT love their land and their people, what do you expect to happen to them? If we do not love our land and our people (for the sake of this discussion I presume you are an American), what do you expect to happen to us?
And if Israelis do not love their land and their people, what do you imagine will be their fate?
Follow revisionist history. It will alway bring you back to leftist atrocities being blamed on some ‘far right’.
The NAZIs were Socialist, not “Far Right.”
GFY. Go join the libtards
“ and now, I’m not so sure who is ridiculous, or if in fact we are all being played,” Blake Flayton.”
You’re being played.
L
It takes a certain level of obtuseness to conflate Völkism with Patriotismus.
No German has a problem distinguishing the two, which probably underlines the benefit of autistic American multi-billionaires keeping out of German politics.
We can agree that whether far-left or far-right, Nazis were virulent Jew-haters.
For a modern German party to echo Nazi themew is troubling.
Saying this just days after giving a “nazi salute” does not improve the image sheeple have of him.
.
He wasn’t “jokingly minimizing” the Nazi past. Where are you coming up with this stupidity?
World War II ended 80 years ago. No German in 2025 is responsible for what happened in the past, nor should they feel shame for it. Feeling ashamed for what someone ELSE did is ridiculous. It shouldn’t be taboo to be proud to be German.
NO ONE HAS CLAIMED LIVING GERMANS ARE RESPONSIBLE.
Where do you come up with that?
National history does NOT equal shame. A German teen today is no more responsible for the Holocaust than an American kid is for the Wounded Knee massacre.
It’s weird how people who defend retaining monuments so as not to forget US history find a society that rigorously teaches its own history is somehow misguided.
(By the way, the Japanese have largely ignored or downplayed their country’s atrocities, so I guess that by you lights they are more enlightened.)
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