Trump supporter explains what led to 'Heil, Hitler' salute at canceled Chicago rally
Source: Chicago Tribune
A 69-year-old Yorkville woman and her husband are defending her actions after a Tribune photo showed her giving a Nazi salute during an altercation with protesters outside UIC Pavilion Friday night following the ill-fated Donald Trump rally. The photo of Trump supporter Birgitt Peterson went viral on social media this weekend, causing some to wonder about her motivation for making the gesture.
Peterson, who said she emigrated from West Berlin and has been a U.S. citizen since 1982, said the salute came during an argument with protesters and was simply her response to them giving her the Nazi gesture. Her husband, Donald, insisted: "We're not skinheads, we're not Nazis."
"So Birgitt decided to teach them to do it,'' said Donald Peterson, who insisted they were "not Nazis'' and absolutely not supporters or "saluting'' Adolf Hitler.
"I lifted my arms," she said, adding that in German she said, "Hail to the German Reich." A protester who was photographed with Peterson, Michael Joseph Garza, told the Tribune on Saturday he did not believe Peterson was responding to anyone else when she raised her arm in the salute. "I went up to her and said, 'Ma'am, please leave, we have understood you, we have made a (path),'" Garza recalled. "She said, 'Go? Back in my day, this is what we did,' basically, and then she hailed Hitler."
Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-birgitt-peterson-trump-rally-met-0313-20160312-story.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nazi-saluting-trump-supporter-says-shes-not-a-nazi/
"They said Trump is a second Hitler," she told the Times, recalling that one activist next to her that night had held aloft a photo of the Nazi leader. "I said do you know what that sign stands for? Do you know who Hitler really was?"
"I make the point that they are demonstrating something they had no knowledge about," she said. "If you want to do it right, you do it right. You don't know what you are doing."
It was then that she gestured in a Nazi salute.
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)IronLionZion
(45,457 posts)nichomachus
(12,754 posts)So, she never "did it" back in "her day."
Her explanation is bullshit.
DhhD
(4,695 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)...was forbidden and illegal. AS WELL IT SHOULD BE... the pic of her "heiling" sparked visceral DISGUST.
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)liberalnarb
(4,532 posts)"I make the point that they are demonstrating something they had no knowledge about," she said. "If you want to do it right, you do it right. You don't know what you are doing."
It was then that she gestured in a Nazi salute.
What the flying fuck does that mean?? They have no knowledge about Hitler? They don't know who he was? And how the hell could them not knowing who he was lead to her giving the Nazi salute. It makes no goddamn sense.
me b zola
(19,053 posts)She's not fooling anyone.
downeastdaniel
(497 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,007 posts)The woman pictured with me and what looks to be her husband we're stragglers in the pack, and started responding to people's jeers. Some guy ripped a sign out of the man's hands and another man leapt out of nowhere, encouraging everyone around to respect them and let them leave (again, sometimes America is amazing).
This woman is a human being and although I don't share her views, I start yelling "I will respect my elders. Please. Leave." and a few other great folks and I start to clear the path. I walk right up to her and say "Ma'am we have listened to you. We understand this is all a little wild but we have cleared a path for you to leave *my right hand was constantly swinging in motion, showing her the path out we made for her, as shown in the photo*"
She goes, and I quote "Go? Back in my day, you know what we did-"
Bam. Hail's Hitler.
{...}
Blue Idaho
(5,049 posts)She would be arrested.
metalbot
(1,058 posts)Not the fact that she would be arrested for it, but the idea that she would be arrested for it. We either support the freedom of ideas, or we don't. Trump is an ass. He has some moronic ideas. The fact that those ideas are moronic should never trigger us to think that we should prosecute those that agree with those ideas. I'm actually appalled by the idea that Germany, as a first world nation, would think that ideas are so harmful that they should be punished by putting someone in a cage.
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)Hitler and the Nazi's is a brutal stain on Germany's past. We have nothing comparable in our history. Yes, we as a nation committed our own genocide against native Americans, but we were never felt the humiliation of defeat or worldwide revulsion at the time.
I understand how they feel. They have freedom of speech for everyone but Nazis. I can't see that I blame them.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)She was born in 1946. What would she remember as Newborn or even a Toddler? Were people in Germany still saluting Hitler in the 50's when she was a young child in school?
She is a Post War Baby. WW2 was not her day. She must have been shouting this at young protesters because it would never fly with someone her own age.
I am 2 years younger than her. Big difference? WW2 is NOT "My Day".
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)Plus, she's a fucking Nazi. Herr DrumpFührer is exposing these assholes for us. Hopefully the FBI is also monitoring these people.
IsItJustMe
(7,012 posts)why it would be illegal to do that in Germany. Just saying...
Lionel Mandrake
(4,076 posts)After WW2 the Allies (other than the USSR) carried out a de-Nazification program. So successful was this program that Germans took it to heart and made it illegal to give the Hitler salute, display the Swastika, or even to deny the Holocaust in public. Even today, de-Nazification trumps freedom of speech in Germany.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Would you support the First Amendment being changed so that pro-slavery statements can be made illegal?
uhnope
(6,419 posts)IsItJustMe
(7,012 posts)sofa king
(10,857 posts)This whole election is like a giant sequel to "The Producers."