Fresh off a controversy over a gesture many saw as a Nazi salute, tech billionaire Elon Musk appeared virtually at a campaign event for a far-right German political party on Saturday, where he urged listeners not to be ashamed of their country's history.
Musk — the head of President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency — was met with roars of applause from the more than 4,000 attendees gathered in the German city of Halle as he appeared on screen at a rally for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.
"I think you really are the best hope for Germany," Musk told them.
Musk was introduced by party co-leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel, whom he endorsed and praised effusively during a more than hour-long conversation 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 trying to interfere in Germany's national elections, which are scheduled for Feb. 23.
Musk, the world's richest man, has waded into politics in other European countries, throwing his support behind far-right leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and trolling Britain's center-left government.
On Saturday, Musk spoke repeatedly about the importance of Germans taking pride in 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 said.
Then, in an apparent reference to the Nazi era, Musk added that there is "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 said as the crowd applauded.
Musk's comments came two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day — this year marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz — and less than a week after he twice made straight-armed gestures at a Trump inauguration event, which many viewers interpreted as Nazi salutes.
As debate over Musk's movements and intentions ensued last week, he responded with a series of Nazi-themed puns in a post on X. He's now facing a fresh round of criticism from Jewish leaders and Western politicians for his comments over the weekend.
Musk did not immediately respond after NPR reached out for comment.
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." While the ADL downplayed Musk's motion as an "awkward gesture" last 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 responsibility, not guilt
The Holocaust — during which Nazis murdered 6 million European Jews — remains a highly sensitive subject in Germany.
Its government has gone to great lengths to preserve and confront that history, including through thousands of memorials and museums, mandatory school curricula and strict laws prohibiting Holocaust denial and dissemination of Nazi propaganda.
Many of Musk's critics described his comments 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 Center located 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, adding that Holocaust remembrance is about education, commemoration and historical responsibility, not "guilting or shaming today's Germany."
Others drew an even more direct line between Holocaust remembrance and modern German politics — which, in September, saw AfD become the first far-right party to win a state election since the Nazi era.
"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.K., told 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 extreme views have alienated many in Germany
The AfD has gained ground in German politics despite considerable controversy.
It was founded in 2013 as an anti-European Union party, but has since radicalized into a nationalist, anti-immigrant party that aims "to eliminate the free democratic basic order," the ADL says, citing a 2023 report by the German Institute for Human Rights.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency has put the party under surveillance, labeled it as "suspected extremist" in 2021, and classified its youth wing as extremist in 2023. A court upheld those designations last year.
The party's leaders in various German states have been accused of trivializing the Holocaust, from staging a walkout during a 2019 memorial service to repeatedly using banned Nazi slogans to posting campaign flyers designed as "deportation tickets" ahead of February's election.
While AfD is polling in second place, the other mainstream political parties refuse to govern in coalition with the party because of its extreme views. Many German voters have expressed their opposition as well.
On Saturday, the same day Musk spoke at the rally, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Berlin and other German cities to protest the rise of the AfD and far-right in general.
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