Elon Musk’s Nazi salute insulted all the veterans who fought fascism in World War 2

When things are presented without historical context. the gravity of what has happened can be overlooked. This piece is about the suffering the American population and ultimately all humanity endured in World War 2 because of Nazism. and the attempted normalization of fascism in America by Elon Musk.

Things are moving fast with the new administration. Elon Musk is tearing through our government at breakneck speed ripping agencies to shreds. He is acting like our government is a company he just bought where he can fire eighty percent of the workforce. There are numerous stories coming out at the same time to confuse American citizens.

For now, I want to go back to the Nazi salute Elon Musk made at the inauguration. I am not interested in the debate coming out of the right-wing propaganda bubble. Or of the obfuscation by corporate media calling it an awkward hand gesture. We know what we saw. Many Americans fought in World War Two against the Nazi regime where that salute originated.

I want to tell you about my grandfather. He served in World War Two like millions of other Americans did. We the following generations benefited from the horror these men and women endured. For most of us now World War Two is ancient history. It is relegated to history books, documentaries and musty museums full of artifacts. The war ended in 1945, and it is not ancient history. There are still a small number of people living that actually fought in that war.

My grandfather’s name was Owen Huff, and he was a lieutenant commander in the navy. After the war he was honorary commander of Old Ironsides aka the USS Constitution (1) in Boston harbor from 3/27/1945- 7/8/1947. Using this information, I was able to backtrack through some of his documented service history which shows he was part of the invasion of Europe to defeat fascism.

USS Constitution

He participated in the Italian campaign to liberate Italy from the Germans. I am going to highlight what he experienced at the battle of Anzio Italy because I found specific info on where he was during that operation. The invasion of Anzio was called operation Shingle. The landing was launched on January 22, 1944, and on that day 36000 troops and 3200 vehicles went ashore. A week later more troops had arrived for a total of 61000 Allied troops that were about to engage in brutal combat against 71000 Germans. Many on both sides would lose their lives. (2)

Owen was the commanding officer of the USS Hopi (from 3/11/1943-10/16/1944) which was a tugboat. He had participated in the landings at Sicily, Salerno and now he was in the harbor off Anzio. (3)

USS Hopi (AT-71) approaching the burning and abandoned liberty ship, SS Robert Rowan while patrolling the anchorage off the Sicily landings, 11 July 1943. The stern of USS Lyon (AP-71) is visible to the left in the photo.
Photo by J R Eyerman, Life Magazine, taken from USS Boise (CL-47).

For my grandfather and those other men on that beachhead it was complete terror, life and death. There was little cover for Allied troops. German artillery, including a monstrous 280mm railway gun nicknamed ‘Anzio Annie’, pounded the Allied beachhead. The Luftwaffe also mounted attacks, including strikes on the invasion fleet by Heinkel He 177 bombers armed with Fritz-X guided bombs and Henschel Hs-293 anti-ship missiles.

Amid this madness my grandfather and the crew on his boat did their duty, On February 15 the liberty ship Elihu Yale was severely damaged by a direct bomb hit which left her burning fiercely. The ship had been abandoned except for one wounded man trapped below, though there were still some men clinging to lifelines. After picking up survivors, Hopi maneuvered alongside and transferred firefighting equipment to the stricken vessel. Over 2 days later the last fire was extinguished. Hopi, which handled the entire operation without outside assistance, had fought the fire with only some 40 men. The rest of the crew had remained on their stations during repeated air raids and heavy fire from shore.

The Elihu Yale incident is from the naval history and heritage command website. In this way I have an exact incident where I can say my granddad was there. He was there as bombers and artillery rained death on the soldiers who fought against fascism. The horror and utter destruction of World War two is not conveyed by mere words. If you want to learn more there was an excellent episode of The World At War about the Italian campaign.

It is called Tough Old Gut and you can watch it on you tube at this link. It is graphic and it shows dead soldiers and the realities of what happened in Europe. But all this info will never let us know what it was like to have experienced this as it happened.

The World at War HD (1080p) - Ep. 13 - Tough Old Gut: Italy (November 1942 – June 1944)

The Anzio Landings were costly.

A total of 43,000 Allied casualties were sustained during the four-month battle with 7,000 killed. This was just one battle in Europe. Ultimately tens of millions human beings died in the European campaign. At the end of the war much of Europe lay in ruins.

Which brings me back to the point of this piece. All of this started in the minds of a small group of men. Led by a failed painter named Adolph Hitler. The small group of men used the Nazi salute. After they rose to power, they would nearly destroy the civilized world.

Elon Musk was raised in Apartheid South Africa. Musk is no stranger to what a racist system can do. He spent his formative perched atop a system that gave his family tremendous privilege and wealth at the expense of minorities having no rights. Musk is the richest person in the world and he gave Trump 288 million dollars to get elected. He was standing at the peak of our government that day. This was not a joke among friends. It was a message to the world.

A normal person that did not believe in fascism would never even think to make that gesture. Let alone at the inauguration of a president of the United States. It has no place in our society after all the suffering Americans endured because of it.

Musk would joke about the salute on X in the days after Elon Musk@elonmusk“Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming “

This is not a joke and Musk is normalizing fascist behavior. There is a saying those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

Musk is dismantling agencies that regulate his business interests and protect American consumers from fraud. There is another saying when someone shows you who they are believe them. Musk has shown who he is and, in the process, insulted all the American soldiers that fought fascism.

16 million Americans served in World War two and over 400.000 of them were killed and 671,000 were wounded. I don’t think any of them could have imagined that a Nazi salute would occur at the presidential Inauguration a mere eighty years later.

I did not know my grandfather well. I have a picture of him with my brother on Cape Cod. His eyes look sad and there was talk within the family that he had shrapnel in his back for the rest of his life. The horror of WW2 echoed through many families after the war. For many years veterans did not talk about ptsd in public they sucked it up and put one foot in front of the other.

I wonder what my grandfather would have told me in an honest conversation. Would he have cried about the young men he saw lose their lives. Would he tell me he still had nightmares about bombs and shells falling from the sky off the coast of Italy. Those are things I can never know because he died in 1986. But there are many WW2 vets who did open up in their later years and admit they were still haunted by that long ago war. Married men who slept in separate beds from their wives because of the ptsd nightmares. Men who sought comfort at the bottom of a bottle.

All of this rose out of a little group of men with a lust for power. Once again, we have a little group with a lust for power of which Elon Musk is a leader. The richest man in the world performed the same salute of that other little group from not so long ago. Are we truly listening?

1 Owen William Huff - USS Constitution Museum

2 Operation Shingle & The Anzio Landings | CWGC

3 Hopi

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