Party Like It's 1939: German Chancellor's Send-Off Compared to Nazi Rally

© REUTERS / POOL / Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in BerlinOutgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin
Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin - Sputnik International, 1920, 04.12.2021
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Even Angela Merkel's choice of music for her official send-off had political undertones, with songs by East German “defector” Nina Hagen and Hildegard Knef, the lover of executed Nazi propagandist Ewald von Demandowsky.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's farewell ceremony has been compared to Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler's torchlit rallies.
The "Grand Tattoo" for the outgoing leader of 16 years featured soldiers with distinctive WWII-style steel helmets, field-grey greatcoats, and Mauser rifles marching with flaming torches in their hands.
That drew inevitable comparisons between Friday night's ceremony and the Nuremberg rallies and modern neo-Nazi marches.
© REUTERS / FABRIZIO BENSCH / Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in BerlinOutgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin
Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin - Sputnik International, 1920, 04.12.2021
Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin
© REUTERS / POOL / Ceremonial send-off for Merkel in BerlinCeremonial send-off for Merkel in Berlin
Ceremonial send-off for Merkel in Berlin - Sputnik International, 1920, 04.12.2021
Ceremonial send-off for Merkel in Berlin
Twitter users from countries occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War were naturally more sensitive to the images.

"I suspected that the Nazi regime was not dead! Adolf missed his supremacy over Europe, but Merkel succeeded", one wrote.

"Goodbye to the guardian angel of the neonazis in Ukraine and the queen of NATO! A glorious and Nazi ritual farewell ceremony for Merkel", another posted.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during an informal EU summit on migration at EU headquarters in Brussels, Sunday, June 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, Pool) - Sputnik International, 1920, 04.12.2021
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Rose Tattoo

Even Merkel's choice of music, the song Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film) by ageing punk rocker Nina Hagen, was seen as a dig at communist East Germany, where both Merkel and Hagen were born.
She also picked the song Für mich soll's rote Rosen regnen (It Shall Rain Red Roses For Me) by Hildegard Knef.
Knef was taken prisoner by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 after joining her lover Ewald von Demandowsky, a Nazi film producer and SS officer, in the Volkssturm militia defending Berlin.
Demandowsky fled Berlin, but was taken prisoner by free Polish forces. He was released and returned to West Berlin, where he was later arrested by US forces and extradited to the Soviet zone. He was tried for war crimes by a Soviet Military Tribunal and executed in the city by firing squad in October 1946.

Triumph of the Won't

Netizens also accused Merkel of fascist tendencies for her comments on Friday backing compulsory COVID-19 vaccinations for all Germans and restricting the freedoms of those who refuse.
© REUTERS / FABRIZIO BENSCH / Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in BerlinOutgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin
Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin - Sputnik International, 1920, 04.12.2021
Outgoing German Chancellor Merkel is honoured with Grand Tattoo, in Berlin
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