During the Bush era, US conservatives used to complain bitterly about the intransigence of "Old Europe". But today's Tea Party extremists embrace "Old Germany" – especially the Waffen-SS and the East German "Grenztruppen" (border guards).
Rich Iott is the Tea Party candidate for Congress. Rich spends his weekends dressed as a Nazi and assumes the identity of "Reinhard Pferdmann", re-enacting the glories of the Waffen-SS along with other Nazi enthusiasts.
Iott doesn't view members of the Waffen-SS as murderous shock troops; instead, he has nothing but praise for their courage and patriotism.
"I've always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that's incredible.
Meanwhile, in Alaska, the Tea Party candidate for the US Senate, Joe Miller, is full of praise for the old border guard unit of the East German Volksarmee:
Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller was asked about illegal immigration at his town hall yesterday, and he said that the country's first priority should be to secure the border. "If East Germany could, we could," he said.
"East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow" from one side of the border to the other. "Now, obviously, other things there were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, obviously to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could."
During the Tea Party rally Miller had his private Stasi-security unit handcuff a reporter who asked Miller a question he found inappropriate.
Boh Miller and Iott are representative of the hyper-athoritarian streak prevalent in the Tea Party movement.
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They really are nuts, aren’t they? How did all that Nazi stuff work out for Germany? Not too well, actually.
It’s spelled Iott, actually. This website is one of the first that turns up when one searches “Rich Iott”:
http://www.iottshutdownfoodtown.com/
Thanks, correction made.
You got to take things more lightly lads.
Just because they wear such uniforms in their freetime, you can’t assume they are full-fledged fans of those systems.
When I saw “Neues aus der Anstalt” (cabaret in German TV) this week, a guy who talked about the integration-debate said that “We Germans are role-models when it comes to integrating others anyway. After all we already managed to integrate people all the way from the Atlantic wall to the Balkans!”
In earlier times the audience would have reacted like you guys here, taking a deep breath thinking “Oh dear who could he say someting like that”.
Today people simply have a good laugh.
As far as I’m concerned, the guy can stand in the town square and recite Mein Kampf. Would I ever vote for someone whose alter ego is SS Officer Reinhard Pferdmann? You’ve got to be kidding!
Alright, I didn’t say you should vote for them 🙂
I am interested in how this affects their political careers. Is it going to be the end of it?
Either way it seems the Austrians are far more relaxed in such cases. Didn’t Heinz-Christian Strache have a similar outing?
I find it disconserting that your article goes to great lengths to try and brand the Tea Party as Nazis. We are German Americans, some of whom speak fluent German and never have set foot on present day or Nazi wartime German soil. I wanted to shae my link page so you could get an insight on what Tea Party Americans are really standing for. As far as what we think of Muslims, the feeling is mutual. Muslims call non Muslims and they want to kill you if you criticize them back. Their Sharia is intend as a Trojan horse, that you cannot critize, thus setting it befor other’s laws and basically, those who makie criticizing Islam hate speech become a caliphate. They wear out their welcome and creat seperate no go zones. We Tea Party supporters won’t let this violent expansionist religion dominate here in the U.S. Study their history. Ask the Hindus and so many other countries who have been under their sword. I would thank you not to start labeling and judging the Tea Party until you properly research and without a preconcieved notion or far away missinformed European propaganda.
And with Merkel, I see an extreme opposite. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve seen pictures of her strolling around with the communist party in East Germany. Just saying. AS for Joe Miller, I would have to do some research of my own on him. I he said those things that may be out of context or he is not right in the head.
This post was from seven years ago?
You mean the Tea Party is STILL around? I thought it had morphed into the Trumpist alt-right neo-Nazi party.