American historian Timothy Snyder draws direct comparisons between US President Donald Trump’s governing style and the tactics employed by the Nazis. In his piece for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS), Snyder cites a specific example: US official Greg Bovino, who led ICE’s violent actions in Minneapolis while wearing clothing that many observed resembled SS uniforms. Snyder argued that Bovino “styled himself as Himmler or Heydrich”. He also points out that US government online posts frequently contain content that functions as coded references to white nationalism or fascism.
Snyder directs sharp criticism at billionaire Elon Musk, whom he describes as “perhaps the most influential person in America”. According to Snyder, Musk has modified the parameters of his platform X in ways that now make it significantly easier to disseminate Nazi propaganda. He further notes that Musk’s arm‑raised gesture has been misinterpreted as a Hitler salute, simply because it is indeed that salute. Snyder finds it amusing that “some people try not to see obvious signs”.
Contrary to the argument that Nazi comparisons are prohibited because they would trivialize the Holocaust or challenge its uniqueness, Snyder says that denying such comparisons is a form of “negative national exceptionalism”. He maintains that refusing to draw parallels to the Nazi regime makes the historical study of the Holocaust moot. In his view, nothing is unique enough in history to preclude learning from it. “Those who take the Holocaust seriously examine all the elements that made it possible, thereby gaining a better understanding of the present” he says.
Snyder points out that presently there is a sizable cohort of Americans in leading positions who view the Third Reich as a positive example. “We cannot analyze these individuals if we distance ourselves from knowledge of the Third Reich” he argues. He claims that it is a perversion to insist we want to resist fascism while simultaneously refusing to learn about it.
In the wake of imperial tendencies within the leadership of the United States, Russia, and China, Snyder underscores the importance of the European Union. He contends that the EU is crucial today because it offers an answer to the question of what may follow the empire era. The EU strives to create a “large integrated zone that is not based on exploitation or on the imbalance between center and periphery”. Many European nations, Snyder suggests, have not appreciated this, “failing to see that Europe embodies hope that a different path is possible”. He believes that Europeans must recognize that their greatest contemporary competitors are empires; only then will they appreciate the EU’s role as an alternative model.
German history, Snyder argues, plays a central role in this context. “Whether democracy will exist in the world depends on Europe, and Europe depends on Germany”. For Germans, such a reality is “not always comfortable”. They have been conditioned to believe that they should not lead. “But if they do not lead, all power is handed over entirely to the Americans and the Russians”.
Given this climate, Snyder declares that the AfD is especially dangerous because it works with American social‑media oligarchs. “It aims to let those individuals dominate the German information space”. Thus, the AfD is less a German political party than an instrument of American tech giants. Musk and US Vice President J.D. Vance support the party because they wish to disrupt the EU and thereby alter EU rules that regulate digital media. Their motive is profit; spreading anti‑European fascism is a means to that end. Snyder claims that the AfD’s support forms “part of a project to destroy European democracies and the EU”.
