'In praise of the Wehrmacht’ - Twitter outrage at sneaky Spectator Nazi army headline swap
In a spectacular own-goal the right-wing magazine The Spectator published an article online headlined ‘In praise of the Wehrmacht.’ Despite the copy being quickly changed, the original was screen-grabbed and shared on Twitter.
The piece, attributed to ‘Taki’, had it's headline subsequently changed to ‘The truth about D-Day.’ Taki’s opening gambit was also changed from: “The real story of D-Day is the heroism of German soldiers who were vastly outnumbered but fought nobly and to the death,” was subsequently changed to the more palatable “Don’t believe the Hollywood version. The fact is the Wehrmacht were sitting ducks.”
In praise of the Wehrmacht https://t.co/8EwUDX5Bax
— Zbigniew Polikowski (@love_and_fear) May 17, 2018
Rather than reading like an expose on the Steven Spielberg-esque narrative of the Second World War as the “Hollywood bullshit,” he claims it is, the piece does in fact read, as one Twitter user put it, like “praise for the Wehrmacht,” which some editor thought would make a great title.
Anyone with eyes has known that Taki is a racist for a very long time but Fraser Nelson is letting him publish hymnals in praise of the Wehrmacht now. pic.twitter.com/RF2DtOgVKg
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) May 17, 2018
Instead of addressing legitimate claims against Hollywood’s portrayal of D-Day, say like the under-representation of African Americans onscreen, Taki asks us to remember the horribly outnumbered Germans who hid behind a “mythical sea wall.”
The Spectator has published articles defending Greek neo-Nazis: now it prints this. Why is it still treated as a respectable magazine? pic.twitter.com/MxcPfLBYiT
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) May 17, 2018
I see The Spectator has decided that In Praise of the Wehrmacht is no longer an appropriate headline: it's now The Truth About D-Day (in which Taki writes very much in praise of the Wehrmacht).
— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 17, 2018
We should also feel sorry for the 76,000 Germans, reserve troops who had “not trained in combat,” but never-the-less fought bravely and nobly against the, apparently unfair, 150,000 British, American and Canadian troops.
Oh, and it’s not like Taki doesn’t have form. In 2007, he took the time to write a piece in praise of Mussolini. pic.twitter.com/IqKNwaLy3C
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) May 17, 2018
"In praise of the Wehrmacht." "In praise of the Wehrmacht." IN PRAISE OF THE WEHRMACHT. IN PRAISE OF THE LITERAL ARMY OF THE LITERAL NAZI GERMANY THAT WAS LITERALLY LED BY THE LITERAL HITLER.
— Bloonface (@bloonface) May 17, 2018
German bravery in the face of unfair Allied numbers who used too many trained troops for a sea invasion against a continent strangled by Nazism and suffering the horrors of the holocaust.
Feels like it's worth spelling out that "In praise of the Wehrmacht" is a real article in a publication whose chairman is the BBC's main politics presenter
— Dan Howdon (@danielhowdon) May 17, 2018
But hey, what do you expect from a guy whose previous weekly witticisms include “In Praise of Mussolini,” and once referred to Jewish publishers at the New York Times as "The Big Bagel Times."
Maybe it's time for the Spectator to have a Taxit?
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