Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of defiling the memory of Hitler’s victims when he accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of using “Nazi methods,” Deutsche Welle reported on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Erdogan said on Turkish television: “When we call them Nazis, [the Europeans] get uncomfortable. They rally together in solidarity. Especially Merkel. But you are right now employing Nazi measures,” he accused Merkel directly.
Recently, Erdogan accused the Netherlands and Germany of acting like Nazis when they blocked Turkish government ministers from campaigning in their territory. He also told a Turkish newspaper that the Europeans would “revive gas chambers if they weren’t ashamed.”
“The comparisons between today’s Federal Republic of Germany and National Socialism, which we have heard in recent days, are not only insulting and absolutely false – they also relativize the Nazis’ rule of terror,” Josef Schuster said, suggesting that “the comparison is monstrous and denigrates the suffering of the victims of the Shoah.”
Schuster said that by comparing Merkel with the Nazis Erdogan willfully ignored reral, current manifestations of anti-Semitism.
“In a time in which anti-Semitism and right-wing populism are on the rise, this completely inappropriate comparison and the trivialization it entails of the horrific deeds of the Nazis downplay the true threats,” Schuster pointed out.