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‘Unacceptable mistake’: German army apologizes for Nazi uniform Instagram post

The German army on Wednesday apologized for posting a photo on Instagram of a military uniform complete with two Iron Crosses bearing the Nazi swastika and appearing to celebrate it as "retro".

Published: 27 November 2019 14:21 CET
'Unacceptable mistake': German army apologizes for Nazi uniform Instagram post
A sign for a Bundeswehr office in Cologne. Photo: DPA

After media reports sparked outrage, the army removed the picture of the
Nazi-era Wehrmacht uniform and explained that it was an “unacceptable mistake”.

The Bundeswehr said it was seeking to do a photo-essay on the influence of military uniforms on fashion through the ages but failed to provide the correct historical context in its captions.

“We are very sorry,” it said.

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

Liebe Community, wir möchten uns entschuldigen! Uns ist gestern ein inakzeptabler Fehler unterlaufen. Wir haben ein Foto von einer Wehrmachtsuniform, die für einen Film genutzt wurde, gepostet. Die Uniform ist ein Ausstellungsstück in unserem Militärhistorischen Museum in Dresden. Dieses haben wir aber historisch nicht eingeordnet und zudem mit einer falschen und unpassenden Bildunterschrift versehen. Beabsichtigt war, eine Fotostory zum jahrhundertlangen Einfluss von Uniformen auf die Mode zu zeigen. Leider haben wir bei der Vielzahl der von uns erstellten Fotos dieses fälschlicherweise veröffentlicht. Das alles hätte so natürlich nicht passieren dürfen. Extremismus jeder Art ist bei der Bundeswehr ein absolutes No-Go. Wir untersuchen jetzt, was da schief gelaufen ist und wie wir das in Zukunft verhindern können. Es tut uns sehr leid! Wir arbeiten daran, die gewohnte Qualität unserer Beiträge wieder zu erreichen. /Social Media Team (Fotos: #Bundeswehr) #milstagram

A post shared by Bundeswehr (@bundeswehr) on Nov 27, 2019 at 2:15am PST

“The uniform is an item on exhibition in our military history museum in Dresden. But we did not correctly label the image historically and gave it a wrong and unsuitable caption,” it added on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

READ ALSO: Outrage grows over Hitler masks on sale in Prague

Bild daily, which first reported on the photo, said it carried a “Retro” sticker and bore the caption “To this day, military style elements remain in haute couture”.

The Bundeswehr has over the years repeatedly come under fire over embarrassing associations with Germany's militaristic past.

Last year, then defence minister Ursula von der Leyen ordered the Bundeswehr to cleanse itself of all links to the Wehrmacht, after learning that steel helmets and memorabilia of the Nazi-era army were openly displayed at one of its barracks.

She also ordered barracks still named after WWII figures, like field marshal Erwin Rommel, to be stripped of their names.

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NATO

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would back Sweden's Nato candidacy if the European Union resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara.

Published: 10 July 2023 12:35 CEST
Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th. 

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016. 

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected. 

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard. 

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.” 

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise. 

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

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