Donald Trump Uses Nazi-Uniformed Soldiers in Campaign Tweet

By Josh Nathan-Kazis July 14, 2015

A campaign image tweeted by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to include photos of historical reenactors in World War II-era German uniforms.

The composite image contains a picture of Trump, a pile of hundred-dollar bills, the White House, and the soldiers, all seen through a waving American flag, over the text, “We need real leadership. We need results. Let’s put the U.S. back into business!”

The marching soldiers seem to be wearing WW II-era German uniforms. Trump has since deleted the tweet, but you can see a screenshot below:

John R. Schindler, a former professor at the U.S. Naval War College, appears to have been the first Twitter user to press the point. “Troops at bottom are Waffen-SS, wearing late-WW2 dot pattern camo, SS eagle is visible on the left arms,” Schindler wrote.

Twitter user @LeftyBollocks appeared to identify the stock image of historical reenactors used to create the composite. The image, titled “Marching soldiers,” is tagged with keywords “Fascism” and German Culture,” but carries no specific description. The reenactors appear to be wearing Nazi-style uniforms.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: A Donald Trump spokesperson told The Daily Dot that Trump had nothing to do with the image and blamed it on a young intern:

“Mr. Trump has been in Charlottesville, Virginia, all day at the opening of a development. A young intern created and posted the image and did not see the very faded figures within the flag of the stock photo. The intern apologized and immediately deleted the tweet.”

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO