Germany’s most-circulated broadsheet newspaper is under fire for a published caricature of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg that’s being perceived as anti-Semitic, reminiscent of propaganda from the nation’s Nazi occupied days.
The cartoon was published in the liberal Suddeutsche Zeitung, and it shows Mr. Zuckerberg in the form of an octopus with a hook in his nose, ravaging the world’s technology, Fox News reported. The caricature comes just a few days after Mr. Zuckerberg, 29, announced the $19 billion buy of WhatsApp, a new messaging company.
“The cartoon is starkly reminiscent of a 1938 Nazi cartoon depicting Winston Churchill as a Jewish octopus encircling the globe,” said Efraim Zuroff, with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in Fox News. “And if anyone has any doubts about the anti-Semitic dimension of the cartoon, we can point to Mark Zuckerberg’s very prominent nose, which is not the case in real life. Absolutely disgusting!”
The caption under the cartoon, translated into English, reads “Octopus-Zuckerberg.”
The caricature reminds one of “Nazi propaganda which sought to warn Germany of the threat posed by Jews-world Jewry, and in a certain sense particularly by those Jews who had assimilated into German society, and could not be automatically identified as such,” Mr. Zuroff said, in Fox News.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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