During a vacation to Berlin, a pair of Chinese tourists stopped at the historic Reichstag building and took photos performing the infamous Nazi salute. The duo were promptly detained by the German police on the scene and held on a bail of 500 euros for violating a German law aimed at distancing the nation from its horrific mid-20th-century history.

Police guarding the building, which now houses part of the German Parliament, noticed the tourists taking turns posing and snapping pictures and promptly intervened, according to their statement. The pair, a 36-year-old and a 49-year-old participating in a European tour, were allowed to return to China with their group even though their crime could carry a three-year sentence, according to the Washington Post.

The Reichstag is a particularly sensitive location because of its role in the Nazi rise to power. When the Reichstag caught fire in 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party blamed the fire on Dutch Communists and used it as leverage to access more power. In 2011 a Canadian tourist was also arrested and fined for performing the salute in front of the building, according to the Washington Post.

The incident is yet another example of Germany, and other European nations, criminalizing and condemning Nazi history and its recent resurgence. In this case, the tourists violated provisions of the German criminal code instituted after World War II that ban the salute and many other Nazi symbols, signals, and materials.

Since the war ended, Germany has made strides to distance itself from its history and to educate the new generations on the mistakes made by previous generations. The German public school system has a comprehensive education program on the Holocaust that has only gained momentum in the past few decades, according to PBS.

Nazi flags and symbols are banned across nearly every major country in Europe including Austria, Hitler’s home nation. Earlier this month the Switzerland Supreme Court upheld a conviction of a man performing the salute and yelling “Heil Hitler” outside of a Jewish synagogue in Geneva, according to the New York Times.

Not only is Europe cracking down on the distasteful behavior, but the Chinese government is worried as well. The government is testing out new systems to persuade its people to respect local laws and customs when traveling abroad. One new system would keep track of troublesome tourists and rank them based on severity of their behavior while reminding them to behave properly when they land, according to the Washington Post.

So while the behavior may not surprise the Chinese government, it is certainly frustrating for European nations, and particularly Germany, to constantly deal with tourists making ill-advised Nazi references. As the world sees a resurgence in white nationalism and racial strife these instances are part of a larger global problem that likely has no end in sight. Countries across the globe must tackle issues of discrimination, racism, and their individual histories that are often filled with those same problems.

Josh Schmidt

Josh Schmidt is an editorial intern and is a native of the Washington D.C Metropolitan area. He is working towards a degree in multi-platform journalism with a minor in history at nearby University of Maryland. Contact Josh at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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“If during a study-abroad trip to Indonesia you stumble across an image of the Führer, don’t be surprised,” reported Vice News earlier this summer. “The swastika is also everywhere — on walls, cups, ashtrays, and t-shirts — and it’s not the Buddhist kind.” Stickers, posters, and stenciled graffiti images of Adolf Hitler litter the cities of Indonesia aside images of weapons and bullets. But the Nazi graffiti is not limited to illegal marks; street vendors sell posters and framed prints of a fiery Adolph Hitler delivering an impassioned speech. A prepubescent boy wears a burgundy T-shirt that reads “PUNK NAZI” emblazoned with a swastika. “I don’t idealize Hitler, I simply adore the soldiers’ paraphernalia,” said Henry Mulyana, owner of Soldaten Kaffee (German for ‘The Soldiers’ Café’) in Bandung City, which opened in 2011. Customers can order “Nazi goring” (a version of traditional fried rice) served on swastika-motif china by a waiter wearing a black SS uniform.

The recent bizarre phenomenon of Nazi imagery in Indonesia would be absurdly laughable if it wasn’t so disturbing. Indonesia’s poor education system and historical ignorance may be at the root of the irreverent prevalence of Nazi imagery. Indonesia is a diverse country consisting of more than 300 ethnic groups and over 700 languages, yet few of the nation’s 240 million people receive formal education about race relations. Schools omit world history curriculum, which, according to the Jakarta Globe, contributes to the ignorance of sensitive social topics. “It is not uncommon,” says the Conversation, “for Indonesians to say ‘I like Hitler’ when meeting someone from Germany.”

“Contrary to their European peers, Indonesian students hardly receive any history lessons on World War II. They know nothing about the persecution of Jews, for example,” according to a history professor at the Gadjah Mada University of Yogyakarta in Java. “They see Hitler as a revolutionary, similar to Che Guevara, not as someone who is responsible for the death of millions of Jews…[T]hey’re attracted to emblems of Nazi Germany because they’ve become acquainted with these symbols through punk and hard-rock videos. In their view, these symbols are a representation of rebellion.”

Adolf Hitler bumper sticker, Lombok Barat, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Courtesy of Klaus Stiefel via Flickr

The evidence pointing to Indonesia’s poor education system, however, suggests a more fundamental issue at stake in the resurgence of Nazi imagery. From 1967 to 1998, Indonesia was ruled by an authoritarian, pseudo-Fascist government that strictly controlled school curriculum. “The Ministry of Education prohibited teachers from educating students on international genocide, political violence, or racial conflicts,” said Gene Netto, an English teacher from Jakarat. “Most students graduated without ever having heard of the Holocaust…Students were only taught about the glory and grandeur of Indonesia as a country.”

Indeed, Indonesia has a historic relationship with Nazis specifically and Fascism broadly. During the 1930s, while Indonesia was under the control the Netherlands, Nazi publications were translated and disseminated throughout the country; Hitler’s concept of a “Greater Germany” inspired similar ideals, “Indonesia Mulia” (esteemed Indonesia) and “Indonesia Raya” (great Indonesia), galvanizing the Indonesian National Party (PNI) that was instrumental in achieving independence from the Dutch in 1949. Soekarno, the leader of the independence movement, and subsequently the country’s first president, revered Hitler’s vision of the Third Reich, declaring in 1963, “It’s in the Dritte Reich that the Germans will see Germany at the apex above other nations in this world.” Suharto, the second Indonesian president, came to power in 1967 following a military coup that deposed Soekarno, immediately consolidating government power around the military, consequently instituting a military dictatorship. Building on Soekarno’s Nazi inspired ideals, Suharto’s regime ruthlessly killed criminal and political prisoners, and conducted genocides, most infamously in East Timor. A pro-democracy Indonesian revolution ended Suharto’s long reign in 1998, but the neo-Fascist rhetoric has resumed once again during the current presidential election.

Prabowo Subianto, one of the two front runners in the Indonesian election, is a “continuation” of Suharto’s “fascist rule,” according to Indonesian scholar Andre Vltchek writing in Counter Punch. Prabowo has historic roots in Indonesia’s autocratic government; not only did his father serve as Suharto’s cabinet minister, Prabowo is Suharto’s son in law, and commanded the Special Forces group that spearheaded a brutal occupation and genocide of East Timor in 1976. Prabowo’s resume gives a clear indication that he will be as authoritarian and as cruel as Suharto, if not more so. As Foreign Policy explains, “Suharto-style authoritarianism remains alive and well,” including politics of exclusion, fear, and intimidation; as a campaign spectacle, Prabowo rode a horse into a stadium full of supporters in formation, wearing white uniforms and red berets. Allusions to Mussolini could not be more complete.

A voting bulletin just after the official closing of elections at a voting station in Jakarta. Courtesy of Lord Mountbatten Via Wikipedia.

What is more striking, however, is that Indonesians seem to embrace the Fascist imagery and political rhetoric. “We need Adolf Hitler! In order to fully restore law and order” a businessman in Sumatra exclaimed. “I’m not personally familiar with the [Nazi] ideology, but even if I am, I don’t think I’d find it completely disagreeable,” said Mulyana, the owner of the Nazi-themed café. “For example, communism in Indonesia was prohibited, but it’s flourishing in China. Maybe it’s just a matter of politics.” In June, Indonesian pop star Ahmad Dhani released a music video in support of Prabowo, dressed in a black Nazi uniform, singing a modified version of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

“What is the connection between German soldiers and Indonesia?” Dhani asked rhetorically. “We Indonesians didn’t kill millions of Jews, right?”

The ballots are in but the election is still undecided. Both candidates — Prabowo and Djoko “Jokowi” Widodo — are claiming victory, citing unofficial results conducted by private polling agencies, and accusing each other of election fraud. By law, the Indonesian Election Commission must announce the official results today. Whoever wins, this election marks a clear resurgence of Indonesia’s latent Fascism. The Mussolini-style political campaigns, Nazi-themed cafés, and stenciled images of Hitler plastered through the streets, are not as horrifying, though, as the fact that the Indonesian people seem completely comfortable with the pervasiveness of Fascist symbolism. As we have seen with ‘neo-Fascists’ in Israel, graffiti is a bellwether for subterranean political currents in Indonesian society.

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Ryan D. Purcell (@RyanDPurcell) holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York.

Feature image courtesy of [Ikhlasul Amal via Flickr]

Ryan Purcell

Ryan D. Purcell holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York. Contact Ryan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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