In Instagram posts, Nazi perpetrators are glorified, while their war crimes and role in the Holocaust are omitted. Victims’ organizations call it an “attack on the dignity of the survivors.” Numerous accounts on the social media platform Instagram have been publishing glorifying photos of the Wehrmacht and SS officers from the period of National Socialism (NS) under Adolf Hitler. The accompanying texts highlight the individuals’ bravery, courage, and strategic skill. Their participation in war crimes and in the Holocaust, the mass murder of Europe’s Jews, goes unmentioned. All of this has been documented in a DW investigation. These posts reach millions of people around the world. Many users respond to the photos of the war criminals with approval, adding heart and applause emojis. Any form of critical engagement is absent from these publications. The dissemination of hate symbols, generally, does not seem to have motivated Meta or its platform, Instagram, to flag or remove the corresponding content and accounts. DW’s research shows that photos were repeatedly posted in which, for example, the insignia of the Schutzstaffel (SS) are visible. The SS was the central instrument of repression and terror in the Nazi state. It was chiefly responsible for the crimes committed in German concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka. In the Auschwitz extermination camp alone, the Germans murdered around 1.1 to 1.5 million people — most of them Jews from across Europe, as well as Sinti and Roma, Poles, prisoners of war, political opponents and other minorities. “I am shaken by this mass of Nazi content,” Eva Berendsen told DW. Berendsen works for the Anne Frank Educational Center, which aims to raise awareness of antisemitism and racism. The institution commemorates Anne Frank, the Jewish girl murdered by the Nazis, whose world‑famous diary is one of the most significant documents on the horrors of the Nazi era. “The photographic material is Nazi propaganda that ends up online decontextualized — meaning without any explanation of what one is actually seeing. Young users are initially left completely on their own with this content,” Berendsen said. It is particularly troubling, she said, that many Instagram users are so young that historical subjects such as National Socialism and the crimes of the Holocaust have not yet been taught in their school classes. “We have to assume that young people today are likely to have their first contact with the topics of Nazism and the Holocaust through social media,” Berendsen said.
Strandbad-Betreiber rudert bei kontroverser Einlassregel zurück
Der Betreiber des Heidebads in Halle wollte nur noch deutschsprachige Gäste einlassen. Nach einem Gespräch mit der Stadt gibt es nun eine neue Lösung. Der Betreiber des Heidebads in Halle, Mathias Nobel, hat seine umstrittene Read more