Elon Musk and German far-right leader agree ‘Hitler was a communist’

On Thursday, Elon Musk agreed with the leader of a far-right German political party that Adolf Hitler was a communist and that left-wing groups that support Palestinian causes have more in common with the Nazis than with his own party.

The very strange and full of misinformation conversation between Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD), took place on X. It came after weeks of efforts by Musk to strengthen the far-right party, which has deep connections to neo-Nazism and was monitored for suspected extremism by Germany’s intelligence services.

“(Hitler) was a communist, and he considered himself a socialist,” Weidel said in response to Musk asking about media reports linking the AfD to Nazism.

“The greatest achievement after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right-wing and conservative, he was exactly the opposite,” said Weidel. “He was not a conservative, he was not a libertarian, he was a communist, socialist man, and we are the opposite.”

“Yeah,” Musk replied.

In his autobiography My struggleHitler—who as leader of the German Reich was responsible for the invasion of the Soviet Union and the enslavement and death of millions of its citizens—repeatedly described communism as an enemy of the German nation. . He believed that Marxism was a Jewish conspiracy to control Germany and the world.

Weidel also compared the views of the Nazi Party to those of modern left-wing political groups that support Palestine in the face of what a UN commission has called for. crimes against humanity committed by Israel. While his AfD colleagues saw last month attending a secret meeting organized by former members of a neo-Nazi militant group known for burning the Israeli flag, said: “The AfD is the only protector of the Jewish people here in Germany.”

Weidel is the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in Germany’s early elections, which will take place next month. As a person who previously worked in finance and lives in Switzerland with his wife, who is from Sri Lanka, and their children, he was presented as a relatively moderate face for the party.

This is something Musk picked up on in an op-ed he wrote last month for a German newspaper.

“The portrayal of the AfD as a right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the leader of the party, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka,” Musk wrote. “Do you sound like Hitler? Please!”

Ahead of Thursday’s talks, the EU said it would monitor the event to see if it was artificially promoted to voters in Germany, something that would be in breach of the region’s sweeping Digital Services Act rules. . A spokesperson for the European Commission told WIRED that it has no comment on the content of the livestream.

Weidel referred to the EU’s concern about the conversation, claiming that 150 EU commission officials were listening in, then claimed that the DSA was a tool of censorship, before adding: “You know what Adolf Did Hitler? He shut down free speech. He controlled the media, and without that he would never have succeeded.”