A RIGHT-WING author has faced backlash after he said Germany “mucked up” twice in the 20th century while speaking at the National Conservatism Conference.
Political commentator and associate editor of The Spectator Douglas Murray has been accused of diminishing the impact of the Holocaust with his comments.
He said: “In Europe in particular, nationalism after all sounds different depending on the country you’re in.
“Nationalism in Israel sounds different to nationalism in America, sounds different to nationalism in Italy, sounds different to nationalism here in Britain.
Six million Jews systematically murdered. Millions of Roma, Slavs, Communists, socialists, trade unionists butchered. Over 70 million humans in total killed. The Continent of Europe reduced to rubble. How does Douglas Murray describe this? "Mucking up". https://t.co/iakbp2knCk
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) May 16, 2023
“But the cordon sanitaire which used to exist around nationalism until recent years existed not because we didn’t trust the idea of love of country, not because, I would argue, there was anything wrong with nationalism in a British context.
“It all came from a recognition there was problem with nationalism in a German context.”
He said that this was simply a “historical fact” and that he could “see no reason why every other country in the world should be prevented from feeling pride in itself because the Germans mucked up twice in a century”.
The comments sparked backlash from many social media users as well as the Hope Not Hate Group who said: “Douglas Murray’s comment is serious minimisation of the abhorrent, planned nature of the Holocaust.
“Saying that Germany ‘mucked up’ trivialises and minimises the fact that the Nazis systematically murdered six million Jews during the Holocaust.”
A number of senior figures within the Tory Party are attended the NCC including Home Secretary Suella Braverman who spoke at the event on Monday.
One user pointed out that what was particularly “odious” about the comments was that it was met with “laughing and applause”.
Journalist Owen Jones tweeted: “Six million Jews systematically murdered. Millions of Roma, Slavs, Communists, socialists, trade unionists butchered.
“Over 70 million humans in total killed. The continent of Europe reduced to rubble. How does Douglas Murray describe this? ‘Mucking up’.”
Professor Tanja Bueltmann, a professor of migration and diaspora history also tweeted about how the comments diminished the horrors of the Holocaust.
She said: “79 years ago today, the Nazis began the main phase of extermination of Hungarian Jews. Three trains arrived in Auschwitz that day in 1944, with 9000 deportees murdered in gas chambers.
“79 years later, NatCon speaker Douglas Murray refers to Nazism as a ‘mucking up’.
She said the comments were as “ahistorical as it is shameful” and that the Nazi policy of “exterminating those deemed unworthy” was not “mucking up” but that “it is genocide”.
