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Hitler was right

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"Hitler was right" and/or "Hitler did nothing wrong" are statements and internet memes either expressing support for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler or trolling.[1][2] The ironic or trolling uses of the phrase allow those on the alt-right to maintain plausible deniability over their white supremacist views.[3]

History and usage

Before the 21st century

In 1947, amidst a national outrage and widespread anti-semitic rioting over the execution of two British officers by the Irgun in an event known as The Sergeants affair, angry mobs in North Wales wrote the words "Hitler was right" on Jewish properties.[4][5] In Eccles, a crowd of around 700 people were told by former sergeant major John Regan that "Hitler was right. Exterminate every Jew – every man, woman and child. What are you afraid of? There's only a handful of police." He was fined 15 pounds for the statement.[6]

Colin Jordan, leader of the British National Socialist Movement, argued in a 1962 speech titled "Hitler was right". Some witnesses recalled seeing banners stating "Hitler was right".[7][8] In the early 1960s, Canadian neo-Nazi activist David Stanley distributed "Hitler was right" leaflets.[9] In Germany in the 1960s neo-Nazis were convicted for distributing "Hitler was right" leaflets.[10]

2000s

One of the most well known controversies relating to the 2001 World Conference against Racism was the unfurling of a giant sign saying Hitler was right among a crowd of 20,000 protesters.[11][12][13]

2010s

On June 29, 2011, a user posted on 4chan Hitler Did Nothing Wrong[14] and the phrase has continued to be used since January 30, 2012.[15] After the statement went viral, the site was pulled and accompanied with an apology, but the site quickly went back for a while.[14] The meme was originally on Mountain Dew's 2012 campaign, where in August 2012, 4chan users attacked a third-party sponsored Mountain Dew campaign called "Dub the Dew"[16] on the contest with the name Hitler Did Nothing Wrong, which was a failure. The write-in contained Nazism, the statement as well as the Holocaust joke to climb to the top of the list, and the company shut down the contest.[17] Adweek compared the incident to another recent campaign hijacked under similar circumstances, where musician Pitbull was sent to perform in Kodiak, Alaska, in a Walmart promotion.[18][19][20] An analysis by USA Today found that Teespring was selling T-shirts reading "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong" and one with an image of Bill Cosby paired with the slogan "drinks on me ladies".[21] After the huge controversy, an American Clothing website still continues to sell T-shirts with Nazi Slogans.[22]

A bullfighting stadium in Pinto, Madrid was vandalized by neo-Nazis in 2013 with the phrase (Spanish: ADOLF HITLER TENÍA RAZÓN, lit. 'ADOLF HITLER WAS RIGHT') accompanied with a swastika, prompting a condemnation from the town's mayor, a People's Party member.[23][24] The incident was noted by both a Pew Research Center report[25] and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor's chapter on Spain.[26]

The concept of "Hitler as a Hero" was listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as the top sixth most anti-Semitic slur in 2013, with the subject's entry stating that "'Hitler was right' has emerged as a rallying cry not only for neo-Nazis but increasingly among some Arabs and Muslims."[27]

The Microsoft chatbot Tay was trained in 2016 by internet users to use phrases such as "Hitler did nothing wrong" and "Hitler was right I hate the Jews". It was taken offline because of these statements.[28][29][30]

People tweeting "Hitler was right" has been cited as an example of fascism on social media.[31] A 2017 ProPublica investigation revealed that Facebook allowed advertisers to target users using antisemitic ad categories including "Hitler did nothing wrong".[32]

In 2018, conspiracy theorist Steve West won the Republican primary for a district in the Missouri State House after stating "Hitler was right". The Missouri Republican Party did not endorse West.[33] United States Rep. Mary Miller was criticized for stating the day before the 2021 United States Capitol attack that "Hitler was right on one thing. He said, 'Whoever has the youth has the future.'”[34]

Welsh criminal Austin Ross went on a campaign of vandalistic acts and hate crimes from 2012 to 2018 which involved the defacement of locations across Newport, Wales. Ross carried out at least two arson attacks and regularly covered buildings with posters saying that "Hitler did nothing wrong."[35]

2020s

In 2020, four people were arrested in Arizona after hanging a "Hitler was right" poster.[36]

In 2021, Palestinian BBC journalist Tala Halawa was fired after it was discovered she had tweeted "#Israel is more #Nazi than #Hitler! Oh, #HitlerWasRight #IDF go to hell. #prayForGaza." during the 2014 Gaza War. In response to her suspension Halawa apologized for the tweet but insisted that she was the subject of character assassination by the Israel lobby.[37][38]

On October 20, 2021, posters carrying the phrase were posted on the walls of a synagogue in Carmichael, California, by the far-right Aryan Nations terror group.[39]

References

  1. ^ Sanchez, Barbara (2020). "Internet Memes and Desensitization". Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry. 1 (2).
  2. ^ Demsar, Vlad; Brace-Govan, Jan; Jack, Gavin; Sands, Sean (2021). "The social phenomenon of trolling: understanding the discourse and social practices of online provocation". Journal of Marketing Management. 37 (11–12): 1058–1090. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2021.1900335. S2CID 233651571.
  3. ^ Condis, Megan (2019). "Hateful Games: Why White Supremacist Recruiters Target Gamers and How to Stop Them" (PDF). In Reyman, Jessica; Sparby, Erika M (eds.). Digital Ethics: Rhetoric and Responsibility in Online Aggression. doi:10.4324/9780429266140-9. ISBN 978-0-429-26614-0. OCLC 1111420242. S2CID 189982687.
  4. ^ Bagon, Paul (2003), The Impact of the Jewish Underground upon Anglo Jewry: 1945-1947 (PDF), M.Phil Thesis, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, pp. 127, 128, retrieved 15 January 2008
  5. ^ Rogan, Eugene (10 April 2012). The Arabs: A History. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03248-8.
  6. ^ "Britain's last anti-Jewish riots". New Statesman. 23 May 2012. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  7. ^ Bland, Benjamin (2017). "The life and times of an underground Führer". Patterns of Prejudice. 51 (5): 477–479. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2017.1389000. S2CID 149345921.
  8. ^ Cohen, Joshua (2020). "'Somehow Getting Their Own Back on Hitler': British Antifascism and the Holocaust, 1960–1967". Fascism. 9 (1–2): 121–145. doi:10.1163/22116257-09010004. ISSN 2211-6257. S2CID 234386121.
  9. ^ Kayfetz, Ben (1979). "Neo‐Nazis in Canada". Patterns of Prejudice. 13 (1): 29–32. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1979.9969490.
  10. ^ Brennan, James T. (1965). "Review of Die Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland". The American Journal of Comparative Law. 14 (3): 529–531. doi:10.2307/838465. ISSN 0002-919X. JSTOR 838465.
  11. ^ "Wiesenthal Center Urges Latin American and Caribbean Countries to Announce Its Absence from the Twentieth Anniversary of the infamous Durban Conference". www.wiesenthal.com. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  12. ^ "Amnesty's Israel apartheid claim is a continuation of the Nazis' antisemitic propaganda". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  13. ^ "20 years ago, the UN Durban Conference aimed to combat racism. It devolved into a 'festival of hate' against Jews". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 9 September 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  14. ^ a b "When internet polls are hijacked". BBC News. 21 March 2016.
  15. ^ Weill, Kelly (7 October 2019). "Is 8chan Plotting Return With Ridiculous Rebrand?". The Daily Beast – via www.thedailybeast.com.
  16. ^ Rosenfeld, Everett (14 August 2012). "Mountain Dew's 'Dub the Dew' Online Poll Goes Horribly Wrong". Time – via newsfeed.time.com.
  17. ^ Romano, Aja (10 May 2016). "Boaty McBoatFace and the history of internet naming fiascos". Vox.
  18. ^ "Pitbull performs in Kodiak". New York Daily News. 31 July 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
  19. ^ Kiefaber, David. "Mountain Dew Soda-Naming Contest Crashed by Pranksters". Adweek. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  20. ^ "Web pranksters hijack restaurant's Mountain Dew naming contest". New York Daily News. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  21. ^ Weise, Elizabeth. "'Rope. Tree. Journalist': Walmart yanks lynching T-shirt made by controversy-steeped Teespring". USA Today.
  22. ^ "'Hitler did nothing wrong' t-shirts still on sale - The Jewish Chronicle". Archived from the original on 14 October 2019.
  23. ^ Algemeiner, The. "Spanish Bullring Emblazoned With 'Adolf Hitler Was Right,' Swastika". Algemeiner.com. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  24. ^ staff, T. O. I. "'Hitler was right,' reads graffiti at Madrid bullfight". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  25. ^ Wormald, Benjamin (26 February 2015). "Sidebar: Religious Hostilities and Religious Minorities in Europe". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  26. ^ "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015". 2009-2017.state.gov. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  27. ^ "2013 Top Ten Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs 2" (PDF). wiesenthal.com. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  28. ^ Malhotra, Hersh (2017–2018). "Artificial Intelligence: A (Semi-Intelligent) Overview". International In-House Counsel Journal. 11: 1.
  29. ^ Zemčík, Tomáš (2021). "Failure of chatbot Tay was evil, ugliness and uselessness in its nature or do we judge it through cognitive shortcuts and biases?". AI & Society. 36 (1): 361–367. doi:10.1007/s00146-020-01053-4. ISSN 0951-5666. S2CID 225313255.
  30. ^ "Microsoft Pulls Robot After It Tweets 'Hitler Was Right I Hate the Jews'". Haaretz. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  31. ^ Fuchs, Christian (8 December 2017). "Fascism 2.0: Twitter Users' Social Media Memories of Hitler on his 127th Birthday". Fascism. 6 (2): 228–263. doi:10.1163/22116257-00602004. ISSN 2211-6257.
  32. ^ Julia Angwin; Madeleine Varner; Ariana Tobin. "Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach 'Jew Haters'". ProPublica. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  33. ^ "Republican who said 'Hitler was right' wins state house primary vote". The Independent. 15 October 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  34. ^ "Illinois Congresswoman Says 'Hitler Was Right on One Thing'". NBC Chicago. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  35. ^ "Racist Newport arsonist jailed for six years". BBC News. 21 August 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  36. ^ "Four arrested after banner reading 'Hitler was right' hung on Arizona bridge". i24NEWS. 6 August 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  37. ^ "BBC journalist fired for 'Hitler was right' tweet blames 'pro-Israel mob'". Times of Israel. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  38. ^ Zitser, Joshua. "Palestinian BBC journalist who tweeted that 'Hitler was right' is being investigated by the broadcaster". Business Insider. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  39. ^ "'Hitler was right' posters plastered on California synagogue". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
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