Letters: Vile comparison

Published on Saturday 11 February 2012 00:00

IN THIS week’s FMQs Alex Salmond was asked by Ruth Davidson to apologise for calling Ric Bailey of the BBC a gaulieter. Mr Salmond, in response, read out a dictionary definition that suggested that, in essence, it meant no more than an overbearing bureaucrat.

This is completely misleading. Gaulieter is a title invented by the Nazis in the mid-1920s. It is a name that has only been used by the Nazis. No other country at any other time has used the word. Gaulieters were Nazi regional party leaders but in truth many lived like sub-kings between 1933 and 1945.

Gaulieters were some of the most unpleasant human beings ever to have lived. Josef Goebbels was a Berlin gaulieter. Fritz Sauckel, hanged after the Nuremberg trials for slave labour crimes, was one in Thuringia. Quite possibly the most despicable of all Nazis, Julius Streicher, was another gauleiter.

To direct this phrase at someone at any time of the year would be reprehensible, to do so just over a week after International Holocaust Day is even more disgraceful.

Alex Salmond had an opportunity to correct a mistake, instead he made it infinitely worse by treating it as part of the normal political knock-about of FMQs.

Stewart Whyte

Westhill

Aberdeenshire

YOU recently commented quite unfavourably on the First Minister’s description of a BBC official as a “gauleiter” and associated with its origin as a German official before 1945, under the Nazi regime.

As there cannot be any doubt in rational minds as to whether or not such persons still really exist, it might be concluded that the figurative dictionary definition of “gauleiter” as “an overbearing wielder of petty authority” was meant, and that therefore the criticism was unwarranted.

Iain WD Forde

Main Street

Scotlandwell

Kinross-shire

Comments

There are 10 comments to this article

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Kobi

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 05:59 PM

Jeremy Paxman's remark was entirely appropriate, in view of the daily lies from the Nazi-controlled SNP. The brainwashing that goes hand in hand with the SNP is evident in most of the posts on this forum.

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9

Goodbye London Labour

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 05:11 PM

Mr Salmond's remark was entirely appropriate, in view of the daily lies from the Nazi-controlled EBC. The brainwashing that goes hand in hand with the EBC is evident in most of the posts on this thread.

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8

if only I could wander

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 03:50 PM

Pending Moderation

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7

samcoldstream

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12:43 PM

Salmond is milking every every column inch of publicity about this controversy, and the voters will have to endure this political knockabout for another 2 years!

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6

Kobi

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12:26 PM

#3 Agree. I think we should leave Fuhrer Salmond and his team of Gauleiter Russell, Gauleiter Swinney, Reichsfuhrer MacAskill Obergruppenfuhrer Russell, and the assorted ranks of the Geheime Staatspolizei who post on here in support of the SNP cause, alone.

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stellarbluesky

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:02 AM

Well said, Mr Stewart Whyte and Mr John Cameron (Post#1). Mr Salmond is increasingly revealing the true colours of his SNP movement. (The SNP are not a political party.) Perhaps, given enough time . . .

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4

Bug R Tiffanno

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:01 AM

2. So Salmond behaving like the rest of the dross makes it worthy?.................... The SNP using the "We are not as bad as the others" is waring thin.......................Salmond behaving like a fat bloke who's just been thrown out of a pub is boring and increasingly embarrassing.

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3

Alastair the First

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 09:36 AM

Mr Whyte's letter might carry more weight if he was actually able to spell "gauleiter". The word has been used frequently by many politicians of several parties in recent years as has been pointed out elsewhere. It's meaning has changed since it was first used, just as so many words do. I think it is ludicrous to imply that describing someone as a gauleiter nowadays implies that they are a nazi. It's like saying that to describe someone as gay implies that they are necessarily cheerful and jolly -the meaning of the word has changed with time.

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Intervention

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 09:15 AM

the word "gaulieter" has been used by many Unionist politicians and commentators without this faux outrage which is merely an attempt by Unionists to divert attention from the more serious point about BBC bias in the referendum debate ..................................

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john cameron

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 06:16 AM

Alex Salmond has worked hard on his cheeky chappie and professional Scotchman image and there is no doubt that his stream of invective enlivens the dreary Holyrood day. But besmirching professional opponents is one thing – shouting down ordinary people who ask about the fundamental issues of his proposed separation is quite another. Commentators have rightly used the First Minister’s Nazi jibe to draw parallels with 1930s Germany and the Fuhrer’s analogous tendency to claim a monopoly of patriotism. With a wearisome 1,000 days still to go, I think we have already heard enough abuse from the Braveheart tendency and ‘tartan’ shirts are just as unacceptable as ‘brown’ ones. This corrosive referendum campaign will finally end and one way or another, whether we separate or remain in the United Kingdom, we will have to try to live together.

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