Polish prime minister slams Musk's pro-AfD comments

WARSAW

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk slammed US billionaire Elon Musk's comments made Saturday at a far-right German Alternative for Germany (AfD) rally that "children are not responsible for the sins of their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents."

"His words about ‘great Germany’ and ‘the need to forget about German guilt for Nazi crimes’ sounded all too familiar and ominous," Tusk wrote on X Sunday, noting that on Monday, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the notorious German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau will be marked in Poland.

Some 6 million Polish citizens died during World War II at the hands of the Nazis, about half of them Jewish.

The previous Polish government demanded reparations for Nazi-era damages incurred in Poland. Germany has spent much of the postwar era addressing its historical crimes from the war, but the AfD – now campaigning for Feb. 23 German elections – is the first party since 1945 to openly seek to change that approach to history.

At an AfD rally in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Musk said, "Germans should be proud to be Germans" and "children are not responsible for the sins of their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents," adding that it is necessary to "overcome" the focus on past sins.

He added: “It's good to be proud of German culture and values. We don't want to lose it in the name of multiculturalism, which blurs everything. We want to have unique cultures in the world. We don't want everything to look the same everywhere. When visiting different countries, you experience different cultures. This is unique and good.”

“Germany and countries in Europe need more determination and self-determination, and less Brussels,” he wrote on X, a reference to the words of AfD leader Alice Weidel, the party’s hopeful for the position of German chancellor. Right after Musk's Saturday speech, she mentioned the slogan of US President Donald Trump: "Make America Great Again.”

"People, did you hear that? Americans are making their country great again and we are making our country great again," she told supporters. "Make Germany great again!"

In German election polls, the AfD is in second place behind the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU).