Far-right Imperium Europa official: ‘Hitler did some good things’

An official for the far-right Imperium Europa could not resist presenting Adolf Hitler, the German dictator responsible for the genocide of over 6 million Jews across Europe, in a favourable light as a totalitarian reformer propelled to power by the economic ravages of the 1930s.

Charles Sammut, a long-time acolyte of IE founder Norman Lowell – an apologist for Hitler who in the past has also denied the events of the Holocaust – linked his party’s policy to reverse declining birth rates, with Hitler’s 1930s policies.

“They ask Lowell about why he supports Hitler… but let’s be honest, Hitler came to power in 1933 at the height of the economic depression, finding a country in tatters. He gave married families subsidies… government loans for the married, with debt cut off for each child that was born, in a bid to address demographic issues,” Sammut said on TVM’s Xtra.

“We have the lowest European birth-rate, perhaps in the world. Is that something desirable? We need measures that go beyond children’s allowance,” Sammut said.

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Sammut was talking about the decline of Maltese employees in working-class occupations such as the collection of garbage or construction, which today have been taken up by non-EU nationals. “Our aims are to preserve Maltese culture, tradition, and the country’s demographic. Certainly nobody is content with today’s situation – today legal migration to Malta is taking place at a far higher volume than illegal migration in the past,” he said.

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The discussion on Xtra, never strayed too far from the subject of IE’s adulation of Adolf Hitler, with presenter Saviour Balzan saying that the far-right party, accorded time on the public broadcaster by the Broadcasting Authority, could not avoid being asked about their Nazi sympathies. “Hitler is the worst form of human being possible… and yet you are here praising him.”

Sammut said Hitler’s good deeds “had been copied by others”, referring to economic support for married families.

Balzan asked Sammut how such minor reforms could be propped up against the evil of the Nazi genocide of Jews, and other victims of the WWII ethnic cleansing campaign by Hitler.

“Both sides erred,” Sammut said. “Both sides committed war crimes. The genocide was carried out by both sides. The Allies and the Axis Forces. You are always trying to accuse Norman Lowell about whether he agrees with Hitler’s policies. It’s not a yes-or-no answer.”