newsThe Rise and Fall of Elon Musk’s right arm
Elon Musk in action at the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington in January a year ago
History repeats itself: First as a Nazi salute in Germany, then as “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” in Washington.
by TREVOR GRUNDY
In 1936, the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, then aged 30, was touring Germany where he saw a sign outside a church in Regensburg that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
The author of Waiting for Godot noted in his travel diary: “I walked away past the Dominikanerkirche, and saw on the portal above the northern door the words Gruss Gott (Good day) had been crossed out and replaced by Heil Hitler.”
He added: “Even lavatory attendants greet you with the Hitler salute and the words Heil Hitler.”
This time a year ago, the Hitler salute was in the news again, 80 years after Hitler’s suicide in Berlin and the end of the Second World War.
Central to the brief storm of outrage was the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Was his raised right arm during the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the USA on January 29, 2025, an imitation of the Hitler salute?
Or was it just a copy of the old Roman Way of saying “hello” to friends, or even as the Anti-Defamation League in America suggested, just “an awkward gesture delivered in a moment of enthusiasm.”
Take your pick. He hasn’t done it again – not in public.
Musk’s gesture would have surprised Samuel Beckett and might even have inspired another of his theatres of the absurd performances.
Oswald Mosley – the top drawer British fascist who told the journalist David Frost that this was a traditional way the Romans greeted one another and that the salute had nothing to do with Hitler or Mussolini
Theatre of the absurd it most certainly was in Adolf Hitler’s Germany between 1933-1945.
It was explained well in Tilman Allert’s short book The Hitler Salute published by Metropolitan Books, New York, in 2006.
The German author wrote that from the moment the Nazis came to power in January 1933, this somewhat cryptic salute dominated the culture of human exchange in Germany.
Moments after Hitler was made Chancellor, the German Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick said: ”Now that the state of bickering political parties has been defeated, the Hitler Salute has become the German greeting.”
He added: “The German greeting must become second nature to you. Disregard your Gross Gott, Auf Wiedersehen, Guten Tag, Servus. All who wish to avoid the suspicion of consciously obstructionist behaviour will use the Hitler Salute.”
Germans were required “without prompting” to raise their arms and utter a heartfelt “Heil Hitler” every time the Nazi anthem, the Horst Wessel Lied, was played. Giving the Hitler Salute was a way of demonstrating one’s loyalty to the Third Reich.
God help you if you refused. No-one else would.
The salute was not confined to “good” Germans.
In the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the French delegation showed deference to their German hosts by entering the stadium with their arms outstretched.
And there are photographs of the English football team doing the same in Germany in 1938.
The pattern repeats itself.
First, men and women with power but without responsibility behave like idiots in public as well as in private.
Then the emergence of the Strong Man who rises-up with clear eyes and a strong voice during a time of moral famine.
But what causes moral bankruptcy? What causes the collapse of personal and then national morals?
Allert attempts an answer and says: “A fractured relationship to oneself precedes the underestimation of change in social relations. Once these changes have taken place, charisma can let loose monstrous power and, as Max Weber might have said, turn rules, traditions and all ideas of what is holy on their heads.’ ”
In Germany that took place imperceptibly but in plain sight.
In America and Europe there is a great deal of moral collapse taking place. Men and women who should know better are articulating the fouler thoughts of the mob-minded. The target now is Jews and Muslims. Who and what tomorrow?
So, watch out when men like Musk start flinging their right arms around in public.
Gestures like the one he made almost a year ago this month – whether he was waving to heaven or something more sinister – can be seen as not only significant but also extremely dangerous,
There are millions of young, angry and lost human beings out there just waiting for a leader to show them the way forward – out of economic despair and into material and spiritual hope.
Hitler and the salute Germans greeted one another with throughout the 1930s and the Second World War
The need for strong an aloof leader is part and parcel of our collective political DNA.
Freud knew that. So did Marx and Engels, Hitler and Mussolini, Trotsky , Lenin, Stalin, Putin, Trump, Musk and the man so many political commentators say will be Britain’s next prime minister, Nigel Farage.
Just like the Nazis, all of them promise speedy change that will make their nations great again.
Says Allert: “The life-span of the Nazi salute seems fleeting when viewed against the more enduring catastrophes produced by National Socialism, yet during the twelve years in which it held sway, its ghostly spectacle invested every human encounter with magical fascination and helped to silence a nation’s moral scruples. The Nazi salute thus marked Germany’s regression into a state of moral disregard in two ways: it stamped out the mark of communication – the very heart of the human encounter – wih the sign of the failure and it signalled the triumph of social radicalism over the fragile space of human dignity and interaction.”
The state of “moral disregard” endured until Hitler’s suicide in April, 1945.
Allert adds: “After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, which was led by wermacht officers, the commanders of the three main branches of the German military – desperate to prove their loyalty – aked the Fuhrer to personally approve their decision to introduce the Hitler greetings within the wermacht itself. The change was officially instituted on July 24, 1944, completing the destruction of the military’s autonomy that had commenced a decade earlier with the loyalty oath.”
After the completion of a film called “Kolberg” in 1945 – the Third Reich’s answer to “Gone with the Wind” the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said that in 100 years a new film would be made glorifying Hitler and the Nazi leaders who stood firm and loyal to the end.
He raised his arm as he spoke his last words which were –
“Gentlemen, don’t you wish to play a part in this film, to be brought back to life in 100 years time? I can assure you that this will be a fine and elevating picture. And for the sake of this prospect, it is worth holding fast. Hold on so that in 100 years hence the audience does not hoot and whistle when you appear on the screen.”
Just 19 years to go.
(This article is by the author of Memoir of a Fascist Childhood published by William Heinemann in 1998. About his book, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, wrote in 2009 – ”I was very grateful to have it and it’s an extraordinary chronicle. I wish all those who are inclined to underrate the corrupting potential of fascism would read and digest this.”