Chilean president makes Nazi gaffe in Berlin

The Chilean president has apologised for writing a phrase associated with the Nazis in a message to the German government while on a state visit.

President Sebastian Pinera wrote in the government’s guest book the slogan “Deutschland uber alles" which translates as “Germany above all.”

The phrase was used by Nazi politicians during the Third Reich and after the Second World War was removed from the German national anthem because of its connotations.

President Pinera said he had been taught the slogan at school and that he thought it marked German unification under Otto von Bismarck. He expressed regret but said he had not been aware of its links "to that country's dark past".

He was visiting Berlin as part of a series of international trips made in the wake of the rescue of the 33 miners trapped in the Chilean desert.

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... *sigh*

Now i'm ashamed of being Chilean... this asshole keeps doing stupid shits!

a facepalm isn't enough for describe how stupid is this guy...

and this is not the first stupid thing he does... :/

I see nothing wrong with that slogan... my family still flies the southern flag with the American flag at our house. ... were not kkk or racist, it part of our history.

See!?! Presidents are poeple too!

Lol, what kind of freedom does this president have if he has time to go and graffeti on walls?

Whaaa?

He wrote it in a book.

I didn't know that writing that will get you into trouble into Germany. I always thought that "Deutschland uber alles" was part of the national anthem of Germany.

I went to Youtube to listen to the Germany national anthem after watching Allo Allo and I heard Deutschland uber alles in the anthem. Nonetheless, thanks to this post now I know.

You can't really blame Germany for being ultra-sensitive to anything that remotely has some connection to the Third Reich. Every country has sensitive topics that few within their borders are willing to touch on, like Thailand and its monarchy and Malaysia with its affirmative policies towards her ethnic Malay majority,

meh
uninportant misunderstanding. I hate how people make stupid things into big things. A small comment on someone's skin colour can be made completely racist.
If i were the chilean president, i'd make a casual comment on how it was a misunderstanding.

1. Perspective. We are talking about Nazi Germany.
2. You haven't read the post.
3. I find it hard to believe that, over 60 years of sporting events, no-one has noticed that the national anthem now begins with 'Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit'. Also my face when anyone ever watches 'Allo 'Allo.

Nazi Germany was one of the more horrible things to happen in the last century or two.

So it will make everybody freak out about anything in relation to it.

It won't be for another generation or two before you really see us drifting away from it, and it starts just becoming another stage in history.

Placing this in Random, it's not a video link and has a bit of a discussion going.

Having grown up in Germany, I know how over-sensitive many groups in the country are regarding anything that may be Nazi-related

I'm not sure, but I think the phrase "Deutschland ueber alles" had been in the hymn before the Third Reich. I guess it was later removed b/c it sounds ultra-nationalist.

I wonder how many other countries get away with having highly nationalistic phrases in their hymns? Of course, Germany got smacked down b/c it lost the war