We Are All Schicklgruber Now
29th April 2025
The fellow on the right giving the Hitlergruß (Sieg Heil) in the above photo is the estimable Karl Lauterbach, the outgoing Social Democrat health minister in the soon-to-be-defunct Traffic Light government in Germany. Readers may recall him as “Klaboosterbach”, the intellectual heavyweight shown in the photo below, whose face was all over TV and the Interwebs during the “pandemic”.
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The Hitlergruß is in the eye of the beholder, of course. A gesture may be characterized as such only if the political opinions of the gesturer are in disfavor. Thus, when Elon Musk does it, he’s making a “Nazi salute”, but when Hillary Clinton does it, she’s just waving to the crowd.
A group of Querdenkers, whose political opinions are very much in disfavor in Germany, got themselves in a heap o’ trouble by raising their right arms. They were accordingly fined for their Hitlergrußen.
I don’t have to tell you that when Klaboosterbach raised his right hand, it was not a Nazi salute, unlike the gesture made by the unfortunate Querdenkers. The issue reached a Kafkaesque level of absurdity, however, when the woman who made the poster comparing the Querdenkers with Herr Lauterbach was also fined for her “crime”.
UPDATE: German Woman Fined €3,500 for Image of Politician With Raised Right Arm