Man Trains Dog To Perform ‘Heil Hitler’ Salute — Faces Hate Crime Charge

Image by youtube

By Daniel J. Solomon September 13, 2017

Mark Meechan appeared in a Scottish court on Monday, charged with a hate crime against Jews. His alleged crime? Teaching his girlfriend’s dog to perform a Nazi salute.

“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is, so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi,” said Meechan, who posted a video of the training session on YouTube, where it garnered millions of views before being deleted.

Meechan is heard in the video shouting slogans like “Gas the Jews,” and shows the dog video from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which the Nazis organized. His protestations that he meant no offense did not ease the anxieties of Scotland’s Jewish leaders, who said the video had led to harassment against them.

“There is an echo chamber effect, with people trying to be more offensive. One hundred and sixty pages of messages were collected by us in a day. They supported the video and it was anti-Semitic,” said Ephraim Borowski, head of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, in a comment to the Times of London.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO