So was it Hitler’s greeting or not?
Speaking at the inaugural event of President Trump this week, Elon Musk hit his right hand on his chest before firing his hand diagonally upwards, his palm down. He did it twice.
He looked a lot like the greeting used in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. But almost immediately he began to circulate the stunning number of different interpretations.
Some commentators called it a “Roman greeting”. Others described it as a “honest” expression of joy or rejected it as simply clumsy.
The Cleveta League website, which leads the campaign against anti -Semitism, defines Nazi greeting as “raising the outstretched right hand with the palm of the palm” and puts it in the “most common sign of white superiority in the world.”
But after the greeting of Mr. Male with stiff hands, the slander league called it “an inconvenient gesture at the time of enthusiasm, not a Nazi greeting.”
Andrea Cerep, known as Mr. Musk envoy in Italy, posted on the platform of social media X: “The Roman Empire returned, starting with a Roman greeting.” He later deleted the announcement, saying that people “interpret the whole thing as a reference in Nazifashism.”
G. Musk, who owns Xa, has announced in response to criticism: “Attack” all the Hitleri ‘is so tired. “
Greetings to a straight hand meant very different things in different places and during different periods of history. But at the time when the end right is on the rise, the interpretation of this gesture that was performed intentionally and publicly was simple – especially in Germany, where the history of the greeting was the most powerful.
‘No need to complicate this’
In Germany, gestures like the one made by Mr. Musk illegal, along with other symbols and slogans from the Nazi era. (On Wednesday night, protesters against the male projected a picture showing his greeting and the words “Heil Tesla” to the facade of the German factory of his company.)
For the German establishment, the situation was very clear.
“Hitler’s greeting is Hitler’s greeting is Hitler’s greeting,” reputable German weekly Die Zeit They wrote in the introductory.
“No need to complicate this unnecessarily,” the introductory reads. “Anyone who holds a political speech on the political stage in front of a partially right -wing extremist audience,” – the inauguration was attended by several extremely right -wing politicians from Germany, Italy, France and Britain – “Anyone who raised his right hand in a swinging and corner at the angle several times with Hitler several times. . ”
“Anyone who now thinks he has to discover the older ‘Roman greeting’ as an alleged man’s reference, first of all, shows his willingness to reinterpret it in a benign way,” he concludes.
The “Roman Greetings” are really on the trend on social networks – along with the pictures of the actors in a to -grained films located in ancient Rome, raising their right hand with Mr male, who raises his own.
But was there a Roman greeting in ancient times? No: There is no evidence that the greeting has ever been used in ancient Rome.
The true history of the greeting is a little known – and much shorter: it was used in theatrical productions from the late 19th century and films from the beginning of the 20th century, which then inspired fascists in Italy and Germany to use it. And in fact, it was performed by American school children for decades for completely different reasons.
From mute films to European fascists
“Roman greeting is a modern fabrication,” said Martin Winkler, professor of classics at George Mason University in Virginia and author of the book “Roman greeting: movie, history, ideology.”
“There is no evidence from Roman art and paintings that have survived that the ancient Romans have ever used that gesture,” he added.
The greeting first became popular in stage productions and mute cinemas, when films started using that gesture for costumed dramas located in ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt.
“It’s simply a visual gesture that was largely used in a mute film era when many films were located in antiquity,” said Mr Winkler. “Why? Because in the absence of sound, dramatic gestures and what we would now find by exaggeration were quite ubiquitous. Greetings of greetings were no exception.”
The greeting was experienced by a real breakthrough in 1919 Gabriele D’Annunzio, a soldier and an Italian poet who became a nationalist (who worked on “CabiriaItalian silent film located in ancient times) attacked the riverthe coastal city that is part of Croatia today.
He ruled Rijeka for 15 months as a kind of mini-ceremony, calling his soldiers legionnaires and addressing them from his balcony. And he adopted a ceremony that included a greeting with a straight hand, which he called “Il Saluto Romano,” or Roman greeting.
“This Roman greeting resembled a stitches: stretch out your hand, raised up with your fingers, as if you were a dagger that you symbolically stab in the throat of the enemy,” said Mr Winkler. “It’s a very militarized, politicized type of gesture.”
The Roman greeting was soon adopted by the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who came to power in 1922. The Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler adopted him in 1926, calling him a German greeting.
Intrigated, there was an American greeting that preceded both.
Greetings to the American flag
With modern eyes, it would be disturbing to see a group of schoolchildren with their arms stiffly welcome the American flag. But the gesture was common for decades.
1892 – On the eve of the Chicago World Exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus, Francis Bellamy, the son of a Baptist priest from the northern State of New York, wrote the oath of loyalty, whose version is recited by many Americans of school children to this day.
Together with his boss, James Upton, Bellamy also designed a greeting that accompanied the sword recital: Get up, hand to heart, then stretch your right hand to say hello to Stars and Stripes. Has become known as Bellamy’s greeting.
The pledge itself was part of an Americanization program for children of immigrants. But in 1942, when the United States fought the Nazis in World War II, the gesture of the outstretched hands was abandoned. “It looked too close to a Nazi greeting,” Winkler said.
Whatever Elon Musk was trying to call on Monday, his greeting looked quite close to the Nazi greeting even though he was not identical. He first put his hand on his chest, which is not part of the Nazi greeting, and it could be closer to what those American schoolchildren did until 1942.
But the greeting of loyalty was rejected in a way that did not leave room for the wrong interpretation: the gesture became inextricably linked to the Nazis.
“The usual American perception was: ‘These are our enemies and we don’t want to be like them,'” Winkler said.
G. Musk is now To court the extreme right -wing parties in several European countries. His audience in Washington on the day of the inauguration included Tina Chrupall, co -owner of the German Alternatives for Germany; Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, whose party comes from the post -fascist movement; Nigel Farage of the British Reformist Party; and Eric Zemmour from France, who is to the right even from Marina Le Pen from the French national rally.
“What is happening now is predictable,” Die Zeit said in his introductory. “Neo -Nazis and right -wing radicals can interpret the outstretched right hand as a gesture of twinning and empowering.”
Emma Bubola contributed to the reporting in Rome. Audio produced Parin Behrooz.
