Angela Merkel has asked Turkey’s leader to stop comparing modern day Germany to the Nazis, saying any comparison to Hitler’s political movement by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan “cannot be justified”.
Erdogan made the Nazi jibe after several German towns cancelled events at which Turkish ministers had planned to secure support for a constitutional referendum next month which would hand Erdogan more powers. With an estimated 4 million people of Turkish ethnicity living in Germany –about a third of whom are eligible to vote in Turkey – the country is seen as an important constituency.
Officially, the rallies were halted by Germany officials for health and safety reasons. This prompted Erdogan to lambast the Germans while making a speech in Istanbul.
Discussing Germany, he said: “Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past.”
Merkel said the comparisons were “sad” and “so incredibly misplaced that one really can’t comment, but they cannot be justified”.
She added: “We will not allow the victims of the Nazis to be trivialised. These comparisons with the Nazis must stop.”
Relations between Germany and Turkey are strained following the arrest of German journalist in Turkey last month.
Deniz Yucel, a newspaper reporter for Die Welt, was detained over reports about a hacker attack on the email account of the country’s energy minister.
Erdogan accused Yucel of being a German spy and “representative” of Kurdish rebel group PKK, which Turkey sees as terrorists.
