A hugely popular right-wing Croatian singer and hundreds of thousands of his fans performed a pro-Nazi World War II salute at a massive concert in Zagreb, drawing criticism.

One of Marko Perkovic’s most popular songs, played in the late Saturday concert, starts with the dreaded “For the homeland — Ready!” salute, used by Croatia’s Nazi-era puppet Ustasha regime that ran concentration camps at the time.

Perkovic, whose stage name is Thompson after a U.S.-made machine gun, had previously said both the song and the salute focus on the 1991-95 ethnic war in Croatia, in which he fought using the American firearm, after the country declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. He says his controversial song is “a witness of an era.”

  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    22 hours ago

    How is a “pro-Nazi salute” different from a “Nazi salute”?

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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      22 hours ago

      I’ve always wondered what the difference is between a “nazi sympathizer” and a nazi

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        Maybe they’re only a Nazi if they’re a card-carrying member of the NSDAP, otherwise they’re only a sparkling fascist.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        21 hours ago

        None … it’s always OK to punch a Nazi … and its also OK to punch a Nazi sympathizer

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        17 hours ago

        Well Finland and some Ukrainians joined the Axis because Russia (USSR at the time) was their enemy

        And

        Thailand joined the axis to reclaim land from Britain and France

        They weren’t Nazis but maybe they were sympathetic?

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        21 hours ago

        Good point, but unless the ustashe independently invented it, I’d consider it a Nazi salute.

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 hours ago

          unless the ustashe independently invented it

          They did, they weren’t instructed by German nazis on what words to use. Not that it makes any difference, ustašas were just the local variant of fascists.