Russian President Vladimir Putin, while marking 80 years of the Battle of Stalingrad, said that Russia would defeat Ukraine which according to him is in the grip of a new Avatar of Nazism. In his aggressive speech, Putin lashed out against Germany for providing modern weaponry to Ukraine.

Russia Ukraine War: Zelensky meeting with EU leaders underway; Russia advances in East Ukraine

A top commander in Hitler’s secret police, responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews, was shielded by US&nbsp;and German authorities after World War II and later joined West Germany’s foreign intelligence service, which knew about his wartime role, newly disclosed records reveal.

By the war’s end the official, Franz Josef Huber — who also held a general-level rank in the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organisation — led one of the Gestapo’s largest sections, stretching across Austria and with roles out to the east. In Vienna after the Nazi takeover, his forces worked closely with Adolf Eichmann on deportations to concentration and extermination camps.

Eichmann would eventually be executed for his role in coordinating the murder of millions of Jews. Next Sunday is the 60th anniversary of the opening of his trial in Jerusalem. But Huber never had to hide or to escape abroad, as many other top Third Reich commanders did.

He spent the final decades of his life based in his hometown, Munich, with his family, under his own name. And the explanation for this strange immunity appears to lie in his usefulness in the spying conflicts of the Cold War.

US&nbsp;intelligence documents show that there was strong interest in drawing on Huber’s wartime network to recruit agents in the Soviet bloc, even as Austria was seeking to have him tried for war crimes.

“Although we are by no means unmindful of the dangers involved in playing around with a Gestapo general,” a CIA memo from 1953 stated, “we also believe, on the basis of the information now in our possession, that Huber might be profitably used by this organization.”

Newly disclosed US&nbsp;and German intelligence records reveal that both countries made efforts to conceal Huber’s role in the crimes of the Third Reich and to prevent him from facing trial. German public broadcaster ARD obtained the records and shared them with The New York Times. They will be presented in a “Munich Report” investigative documentary scheduled to be broadcast in Germany on Tuesday.

The German intelligence service, known by the initials BND, employed Huber full time for nearly a decade, giving him a cover story that made him appear to work for a private business. It was nearly 20 years after the war before agency bosses decided they could no longer tolerate the connection. A December 1964 memo warned that disclosure of the secret would “frustrate the efforts of the service’s leadership to build confidence with the federal government and the public.”

This was not the first time Huber had adapted himself to new masters.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, as a talented young police officer in Munich, he took part in the surveillance of political parties, including the Nazis. After Hitler took power in 1933, he became a zealous Nazi and, soon after, a senior figure in the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s feared secret police force.

The Nazi leaders building that force needed experienced police officers, said Michael Holzmann, the son of an Austrian Nazi who has for many years been researching the activities of the Gestapo in that country. “Huber seized this opportunity and turned from a little investigator into a most successful leader of the Gestapo terror regime in former Austria,” he said.

In March 1938, after Germany annexed Austria, Huber was made the Gestapo chief of the most important part of the country, including Vienna, the capital. Shortly after, the Gestapo began an extensive hunt for dissidents in Austria, and Huber gave orders “to arrest immediately undesirable, particularly criminally motivated Jews and transfer them to the concentration camp Dachau.” A few days later, the first two transports of Jews left Vienna for the camp, with many more to follow.

Huber remained in his post until the end of the war, being given more and more personnel and authority. During that time, 70,000 Austrian Jews who were not able to leave the country were murdered, close to 40% of the original community, while their property was looted by the Nazis.

Eichmann confirmed at his trial that he was involved in the deportation of Jews but refused to plead guilty to genocide, saying, “I did not have any other option than to follow the orders I got.”

Huber took a different approach. Speaking to an official of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in 1948 — who interviewed him as a witness, not a suspect — he said he had known nothing about the extermination until the end of 1944, when his deputy told him something vague.

“But the historical evidence paints a completely different picture,” says professor Moshe Zimmerman, a historian and Holocaust scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Eichmann may have been a face more familiar to the Jewish community, but the one who shared responsibility for carrying out the terror against the Jews, their collection, their forced boarding on the trains and their deportation to the camps, was the police and the Gestapo under Huber.”

Huber was also photographed accompanying the head of the SS and the Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, on a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp in upper Austria, where at least 90,000 internees were murdered.

Toward the end of the war Huber was marked as a senior wanted war criminal by US&nbsp;intelligence, and he appears to have anticipated what might come. He devoted much of his time to dealing with agents from the East, a commodity that would soon be even more valuable.

US&nbsp;forces arrested Huber in May 1945.

There are no available records about his interactions with US&nbsp;military intelligence over the two years he was in custody, but in May 1947, despite plentiful contradictory evidence, a US&nbsp;investigator wrote that Huber was “a fair, factual impartial police officer who carried out the police functions without party bias or racial and political prejudice.” The document goes on to state that the SS general “was not an adherent of Nazi party ideologies” and calls him “completely trustworthy and reliable.”

A month later, the commander of the US&nbsp;detention camp stated that Huber’s “diligence and cooperation were highly appreciated.” He was released in March 1948.

In December 1955, Huber enlisted in the Gehlen Organization, from which the BND was born shortly afterward.

“The BND recruited many Nazis, but hardly anyone had such an outstanding position,” said Stefan Meining, a historian and an editor with German public television who created the documentary about Huber. “They knew exactly that Huber was not some petty Gestapo murderer but an SS general who moved within the innermost circles of the Nazi terror apparatus and was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and opponents of the regime.”

Bodo Hechelhammer, the BND’s chief historian, interviewed in the documentary, confirmed that Huber was an employee of the agency and explained that the search for skilled intelligence personnel with a clear anti-communist leaning led to recruitment “far too often among the former Nazis.” The agency did not respond to a request for further comment. The CIA also declined to comment.

In early 1964, fearing disclosure, the BND concluded that it was “no longer conceivable” to keep Huber, lest his role “endanger the service,” and decided to fire him.

But because Huber had not lied to his bosses about his past, “no fault could be proved” to justify firing him, so he was sent on paid leave instead.

He retired three years later, at age 65, and drew a German civil service pension until his death at age 73.

A top commander in Hitler’s secret police, responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews, was shielded by US and German authorities after World War II and later joined West Germany’s foreign intelligence service, which knew about his wartime role, newly disclosed records reveal.

A top commander in Hitler’s secret police, responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews, was shielded by US and German authorities after World War II and later joined West Germany’s foreign intelligence service, which knew about his wartime role, newly disclosed records reveal. By the war’s end the official, Franz Josef Huber — who also held a general-level rank in the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organisation — led one of the Gestapo’s largest sections, stretching across Austria and with roles out to the east. In Vienna after the Nazi takeover, his forces worked closely with Adolf Eichmann on deportations to concentration and extermination camps. Eichmann would eventually be executed for his role in coordinating the murder of millions of Jews. Next Sunday is the 60th anniversary of the opening of his trial in Jerusalem. But Huber never had to hide or to escape abroad, as many other top Third Reich commanders did. He spent the final decades of his life based in his hometown, Munich, with his family, under his own name. And the explanation for this strange immunity appears to lie in his usefulness in the spying conflicts of the Cold War. US intelligence documents show that there was strong interest in drawing on Huber’s wartime network to recruit agents in the Soviet bloc, even as Austria was seeking to have him tried for war crimes. “Although we are by no means unmindful of the dangers involved in playing around with a Gestapo general,” a CIA memo from 1953 stated, “we also believe, on the basis of the information now in our possession, that Huber might be profitably used by this organization.” Newly disclosed US and German intelligence records reveal that both countries made efforts to conceal Huber’s role in the crimes of the Third Reich and to prevent him from facing trial. German public broadcaster ARD obtained the records and shared them with The New York Times. They will be presented in a “Munich Report” investigative documentary scheduled to be broadcast in Germany on Tuesday. The German intelligence service, known by the initials BND, employed Huber full time for nearly a decade, giving him a cover story that made him appear to work for a private business. It was nearly 20 years after the war before agency bosses decided they could no longer tolerate the connection. A December 1964 memo warned that disclosure of the secret would “frustrate the efforts of the service’s leadership to build confidence with the federal government and the public.” This was not the first time Huber had adapted himself to new masters. In the 1920s and early 1930s, as a talented young police officer in Munich, he took part in the surveillance of political parties, including the Nazis. After Hitler took power in 1933, he became a zealous Nazi and, soon after, a senior figure in the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s feared secret police force. The Nazi leaders building that force needed experienced police officers, said Michael Holzmann, the son of an Austrian Nazi who has for many years been researching the activities of the Gestapo in that country. “Huber seized this opportunity and turned from a little investigator into a most successful leader of the Gestapo terror regime in former Austria,” he said. In March 1938, after Germany annexed Austria, Huber was made the Gestapo chief of the most important part of the country, including Vienna, the capital. Shortly after, the Gestapo began an extensive hunt for dissidents in Austria, and Huber gave orders “to arrest immediately undesirable, particularly criminally motivated Jews and transfer them to the concentration camp Dachau.” A few days later, the first two transports of Jews left Vienna for the camp, with many more to follow. Huber remained in his post until the end of the war, being given more and more personnel and authority. During that time, 70,000 Austrian Jews who were not able to leave the country were murdered, close to 40% of the original community, while their property was looted by the Nazis. Eichmann confirmed at his trial that he was involved in the deportation of Jews but refused to plead guilty to genocide, saying, “I did not have any other option than to follow the orders I got.” Huber took a different approach. Speaking to an official of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in 1948 — who interviewed him as a witness, not a suspect — he said he had known nothing about the extermination until the end of 1944, when his deputy told him something vague. “But the historical evidence paints a completely different picture,” says professor Moshe Zimmerman, a historian and Holocaust scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Eichmann may have been a face more familiar to the Jewish community, but the one who shared responsibility for carrying out the terror against the Jews, their collection, their forced boarding on the trains and their deportation to the camps, was the police and the Gestapo under Huber.” Huber was also photographed accompanying the head of the SS and the Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, on a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp in upper Austria, where at least 90,000 internees were murdered. Toward the end of the war Huber was marked as a senior wanted war criminal by US intelligence, and he appears to have anticipated what might come. He devoted much of his time to dealing with agents from the East, a commodity that would soon be even more valuable. US forces arrested Huber in May 1945. There are no available records about his interactions with US military intelligence over the two years he was in custody, but in May 1947, despite plentiful contradictory evidence, a US investigator wrote that Huber was “a fair, factual impartial police officer who carried out the police functions without party bias or racial and political prejudice.” The document goes on to state that the SS general “was not an adherent of Nazi party ideologies” and calls him “completely trustworthy and reliable.” A month later, the commander of the US detention camp stated that Huber’s “diligence and cooperation were highly appreciated.” He was released in March 1948. In December 1955, Huber enlisted in the Gehlen Organization, from which the BND was born shortly afterward. “The BND recruited many Nazis, but hardly anyone had such an outstanding position,” said Stefan Meining, a historian and an editor with German public television who created the documentary about Huber. “They knew exactly that Huber was not some petty Gestapo murderer but an SS general who moved within the innermost circles of the Nazi terror apparatus and was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and opponents of the regime.” Bodo Hechelhammer, the BND’s chief historian, interviewed in the documentary, confirmed that Huber was an employee of the agency and explained that the search for skilled intelligence personnel with a clear anti-communist leaning led to recruitment “far too often among the former Nazis.” The agency did not respond to a request for further comment. The CIA also declined to comment. In early 1964, fearing disclosure, the BND concluded that it was “no longer conceivable” to keep Huber, lest his role “endanger the service,” and decided to fire him. But because Huber had not lied to his bosses about his past, “no fault could be proved” to justify firing him, so he was sent on paid leave instead. He retired three years later, at age 65, and drew a German civil service pension until his death at age 73.

He led Hitler’s secret police in Austria. Then he spied for the West.

Seventy-five years after the liberation of <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/record-23-million-people-visited-auschwitz-in-2019-272829">Auschwitz</a>, a dwindling number of elderly <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/a-horrific-account-of-the-holocaust-that-executed-jews-276822">Holocaust</a> survivors gathered at the former German Nazi death camp on Monday to honour its more than 1.1 million mostly Jewish victims and to share their alarm over rising antisemitism.

More than 200 survivors came from across the globe to the camp the Nazis built at Oswiecim in then-occupied Poland, to share their testimony as a stark warning amid a recent surge of anti-semitic attacks on both sides of the Atlantic, some of them deadly.

Survivors dressed in blue and white striped caps and scarves symbolic of the uniforms prisoners wore at the camp, passed through its chilling "Arbeit macht Frei" (German for "Work makes you free") black wrought-iron gate.

Watch: A horrific account of the 'Holocaust' that executed jews

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/a-horrific-account-of-the-holocaust-that-executed-jews-276822/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Accompanied by Polish President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/polands-main-opposition-picks-moderate-veteran-for-presidential-vote-268295">Andrzej Duda</a>, they laid floral wreaths by the Death Wall in Auschwitz where the Nazis shot dead thousands of prisoners.

"We want the next generation to know what we went through and that it should never happen again," Auschwitz survivor David Marks, 93, said earlier at the former death camp, his voice breaking with emotion.

Thirty-five members of his immediate and extended family of Romanian Jews were killed in Auschwitz, the largest of Nazi Germany's camps that has come to symbolise the six million European Jews who died in the Holocaust.

From mid-1942 the Nazis systematically deported Jews from all over Europe to six camps -- Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.

Watch: 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/75th-anniversary-of-liberation-of-auschwitz-camp-273889/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Organisers insist that Monday's memorial ceremony must focus above all on what survivors have to say rather than the bitter political feuds that have tainted the run-up to the anniversary.

"This is about survivors, it's not about politics," Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, told AFP in the Auschwitz camp, now a memorial and state museum run by Poland.

"We see anti-semitism rising now and we don't want their (survivors) past to be their children's future, or their grand children’s future," he added.

Royals, presidents and prime ministers from nearly 60 countries will attend the ceremony, but no top world leaders, some of whom opted instead to attend a high-profile Holocaust forum in Israel last week seen as rivalling the ceremonies in Poland.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/thousands-protest-against-polands-plan-to-discipline-judges-274146">Poland</a>'s President Duda boycotted the Jerusalem forum after he was denied the opportunity to speak there while Russian President Vladimir Putin was given the floor, despite having earlier falsely accused Poland of colluding with German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and contributing to the outbreak of World War II.

Duda was to make an address at the Monday ceremony in Auschwitz alongside survivors.

Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/opinions-blogs/wion-edit-the-lessons-from-the-holocaust-276197">The lessons from the Holocaust</a>

Allies knew in 1942&nbsp;

While the world only learned the full extent of its horrors after the Soviet Red Army entered the camp on January 27, 1945, the Allies had detailed information about Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews much earlier.

In December 1942, Poland's then London-based government-in-exile forwarded a document, titled "The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland", to the Allies.

The document included detailed accounts of the unfolding Holocaust as witnessed by members of the Polish resistance, but drew disbelief and only muted reactions from the international community.

To inform the Allies, Polish resistance fighters Jan Karski and Witold Pilecki famously risked their lives in separate operations to infiltrate and then escape from Nazi death camps and ghettos in occupied Poland, including Auschwitz.

'Final Solution'

Regarded as exaggeration and Polish war propaganda, "a lot of these reports were simply not believed", renowned Oxford historian Professor Norman Davies said.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Despite "strong demands" by the Polish and Jewish resistance for the Allies to bomb the railways leading to Auschwitz and other death camps, "the military's attitude was 'we've got to concentrate on military targets, not on civilian things'", said Davies.

"One of the targets that the (British) military did bomb was a synthetic fuel factory near Auschwitz" in 1943-44, he added.

Although Allied warplanes flew over the death camp itself, no orders were given to bomb it.

"It was one of the biggest crimes committed by those that were indifferent because they (the Allies) knew what was happening here, they could have done something about it and they deliberately didn't," Auschwitz survivor David Lenga, 93, told AFP, standing next to a barbed-wire fence inside the former camp.

"People of this world need to be educated about the consequences when they become indifferent to evil; if you let evil raise its ugly head, this (the Holocaust) is exactly what is going to happen," said Lenga, a Polish Jew who now lives in California.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of all Nazi death and concentration camps and the one where most people were killed, primarily European Jews, but also Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and Poles.

Operated by the Nazis from 1940 until 1945, Auschwitz was part of a vast network of camps across Europe set up for <a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/in-pics-hitlers-watercolors-grabs-media-bidders-attention-192665">Hitler</a>'s "Final Solution" of genocide against the estimated 10 million Jews in Europe.

Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a dwindling number of elderly Holocaust survivors gathered at the former German Nazi death camp on Monday to honour its more than 1.

Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a dwindling number of elderly Holocaust survivors gathered at the former German Nazi death camp on Monday to honour its more than 1.1 million mostly Jewish victims and to share their alarm over rising antisemitism. More than 200 survivors came from across the globe to the camp the Nazis built at Oswiecim in then-occupied Poland, to share their testimony as a stark warning amid a recent surge of anti-semitic attacks on both sides of the Atlantic, some of them deadly. Survivors dressed in blue and white striped caps and scarves symbolic of the uniforms prisoners wore at the camp, passed through its chilling "Arbeit macht Frei" (German for "Work makes you free") black wrought-iron gate. Watch: A horrific account of the 'Holocaust' that executed jews Accompanied by Polish President Andrzej Duda, they laid floral wreaths by the Death Wall in Auschwitz where the Nazis shot dead thousands of prisoners. "We want the next generation to know what we went through and that it should never happen again," Auschwitz survivor David Marks, 93, said earlier at the former death camp, his voice breaking with emotion. Thirty-five members of his immediate and extended family of Romanian Jews were killed in Auschwitz, the largest of Nazi Germany's camps that has come to symbolise the six million European Jews who died in the Holocaust. From mid-1942 the Nazis systematically deported Jews from all over Europe to six camps -- Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. Watch: 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Organisers insist that Monday's memorial ceremony must focus above all on what survivors have to say rather than the bitter political feuds that have tainted the run-up to the anniversary. "This is about survivors, it's not about politics," Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, told AFP in the Auschwitz camp, now a memorial and state museum run by Poland. "We see anti-semitism rising now and we don't want their (survivors) past to be their children's future, or their grand children’s future," he added. Royals, presidents and prime ministers from nearly 60 countries will attend the ceremony, but no top world leaders, some of whom opted instead to attend a high-profile Holocaust forum in Israel last week seen as rivalling the ceremonies in Poland. Poland's President Duda boycotted the Jerusalem forum after he was denied the opportunity to speak there while Russian President Vladimir Putin was given the floor, despite having earlier falsely accused Poland of colluding with German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and contributing to the outbreak of World War II. Duda was to make an address at the Monday ceremony in Auschwitz alongside survivors. Also read: The lessons from the Holocaust Allies knew in 1942 While the world only learned the full extent of its horrors after the Soviet Red Army entered the camp on January 27, 1945, the Allies had detailed information about Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews much earlier. In December 1942, Poland's then London-based government-in-exile forwarded a document, titled "The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland", to the Allies. The document included detailed accounts of the unfolding Holocaust as witnessed by members of the Polish resistance, but drew disbelief and only muted reactions from the international community. To inform the Allies, Polish resistance fighters Jan Karski and Witold Pilecki famously risked their lives in separate operations to infiltrate and then escape from Nazi death camps and ghettos in occupied Poland, including Auschwitz. 'Final Solution' Regarded as exaggeration and Polish war propaganda, "a lot of these reports were simply not believed", renowned Oxford historian Professor Norman Davies said. Despite "strong demands" by the Polish and Jewish resistance for the Allies to bomb the railways leading to Auschwitz and other death camps, "the military's attitude was 'we've got to concentrate on military targets, not on civilian things'", said Davies. "One of the targets that the (British) military did bomb was a synthetic fuel factory near Auschwitz" in 1943-44, he added. Although Allied warplanes flew over the death camp itself, no orders were given to bomb it. "It was one of the biggest crimes committed by those that were indifferent because they (the Allies) knew what was happening here, they could have done something about it and they deliberately didn't," Auschwitz survivor David Lenga, 93, told AFP, standing next to a barbed-wire fence inside the former camp. "People of this world need to be educated about the consequences when they become indifferent to evil; if you let evil raise its ugly head, this (the Holocaust) is exactly what is going to happen," said Lenga, a Polish Jew who now lives in California. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of all Nazi death and concentration camps and the one where most people were killed, primarily European Jews, but also Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and Poles. Operated by the Nazis from 1940 until 1945, Auschwitz was part of a vast network of camps across Europe set up for Hitler's "Final Solution" of genocide against the estimated 10 million Jews in Europe.

75 years after liberation, Auschwitz survivors return to Nazi death camp

Pope Francis said on Friday politicians who rage against homosexuals, gypsies and Jews remind him of Hitler.

"It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism," Francis said in an address to participants of an international conference on criminal law.

"And I must confess to you that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936," he said, departing from his prepared address.

"With the persecution of Jews, gypsies, and people with homosexual tendencies, today these actions are typical (and) represent 'par excellence' culture of waste and hate. That is what was done in those days and today it is happening again."

During the 1933-45 Nazi regime in Germany, six million Jews were killed and homosexuals and gypsies were among those sent to extermination camps.

Pope Francis did not name any politicians or countries as the targets of his criticism.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro had a history of making homophobic, racist and sexist public remarks before he took office on Jan. 1. He told one interviewer he would rather have a dead son than a gay son.

In May, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/brunei-wont-enforce-gay-sex-death-penalty-after-backlash-216270">Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah extended a moratorium</a> on the death penalty to incoming legislation prohibiting gay sex, seeking to temper a global backlash led by celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John.

The United Nations had warned Brunei it would be violating human rights by implementing Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality.

In recent weeks, Pope Francis has also denounced a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe.

On Wednesday, in improvised remarks at his general audience, he said: "Today the habit of persecuting Jews is beginning to be reborn. Brothers and sisters: this is neither human nor Christian; the Jews are our brothers and sisters and must not be persecuted! Understood?"

Last week, a Vatican cardinal said he was "disgusted" by anti-Semitic abuse directed at an 89-year-old Italian senator and Holocaust survivor, who was given police protection after receiving death threats.

In July, a European Union study said young Jewish Europeans experience more anti-Semitism than their parents, with a rise in abuse coming in emails, text messages and social media postings.

More than 80% of Jews of all ages said they felt anti-Semitism had increased on the Internet over the past five years and around 70% said they faced more hostility in public, the study found.

Pope Francis said on Friday politicians who rage against homosexuals, gypsies and Jews remind him of Hitler. "It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism," Francis said in an address to participants of an international conference on criminal law.

Pope Francis said on Friday politicians who rage against homosexuals, gypsies and Jews remind him of Hitler. "It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism," Francis said in an address to participants of an international conference on criminal law. "And I must confess to you that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936," he said, departing from his prepared address. "With the persecution of Jews, gypsies, and people with homosexual tendencies, today these actions are typical (and) represent 'par excellence' culture of waste and hate. That is what was done in those days and today it is happening again." During the 1933-45 Nazi regime in Germany, six million Jews were killed and homosexuals and gypsies were among those sent to extermination camps. Pope Francis did not name any politicians or countries as the targets of his criticism. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro had a history of making homophobic, racist and sexist public remarks before he took office on Jan. 1. He told one interviewer he would rather have a dead son than a gay son. In May, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah extended a moratorium on the death penalty to incoming legislation prohibiting gay sex, seeking to temper a global backlash led by celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John. The United Nations had warned Brunei it would be violating human rights by implementing Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality. In recent weeks, Pope Francis has also denounced a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. On Wednesday, in improvised remarks at his general audience, he said: "Today the habit of persecuting Jews is beginning to be reborn. Brothers and sisters: this is neither human nor Christian; the Jews are our brothers and sisters and must not be persecuted! Understood?" Last week, a Vatican cardinal said he was "disgusted" by anti-Semitic abuse directed at an 89-year-old Italian senator and Holocaust survivor, who was given police protection after receiving death threats. In July, a European Union study said young Jewish Europeans experience more anti-Semitism than their parents, with a rise in abuse coming in emails, text messages and social media postings. More than 80% of Jews of all ages said they felt anti-Semitism had increased on the Internet over the past five years and around 70% said they faced more hostility in public, the study found.

'I think of speeches by Hitler', says Pope when politicians rage against homosexuals, gypsies and Jews

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