Numerous Instagram accounts have been posting glorifying images of Wehrmacht and SS officers from Nazi Germany, accompanied by captions praising their bravery, courage and tactical skill while ignoring their involvement in war crimes and the Holocaust. A DW investigation found that these decontextualized posts—often showing visible SS insignia—reach millions and receive positive reactions, such as heart and applause emojis, with little or no critical engagement.
The content appears to have evaded moderation: Meta and Instagram have not consistently flagged or removed these hate-symbol-laden posts. DW’s research documented repeated publications featuring SS symbols. The SS was the main instrument of Nazi repression and terror, principally responsible for the atrocities carried out in concentration and extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka. In Auschwitz alone, roughly 1.1 to 1.5 million people were murdered—most of them Jews from across Europe, as well as Sinti and Roma, Poles, prisoners of war, political opponents and other minorities.
Eva Berendsen of the Anne Frank Educational Center said she is “shaken by this mass of Nazi content.” She warned that the images function as online propaganda when presented without context, leaving young users to interpret them on their own. Because many teenagers may encounter Nazism and the Holocaust for the first time on social media—before being taught these topics at school—the posts risk shaping impressions without critical framing. Repeated exposure to images of allegedly heroic soldiers can also reinforce problematic ideals of masculinity, Berendsen said.
Concrete examples illustrate the problem. One post showed two photos of Wehrmacht mountain infantryman Otto Schury—one in uniform, one in later civilian dress—with text praising his “bravery” in capturing Chania on Crete. The caption did not mention that the German occupation of Crete was followed by terror against civilians: about 300 Jewish residents of Chania were deported to concentration camps, with only a handful surviving.
Another post featured Waffen-SS officer Kurt Meyer, displaying SS runes on his collar while praising his toughness. The caption omitted that Meyer was a convicted war criminal and that, after the invasion of Poland in 1939, he personally participated in the murder of Jews.
DW’s inquiry found no single origin for the accounts posting such material: they were registered in various countries, including Germany, Pakistan, the United States and Turkey. Some accounts appear focused on maximizing reach, while others show ideological motivation.
Historians and Holocaust organizations condemned the posts. Johannes Hürter of the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich said that celebrating convicted war criminals and heavily implicated figures like Kurt Meyer is “an almost unbearable distortion of history” and represents a worrying relapse into an uncritical view of the Nazi past. He linked the wave of glorification to the broader rise of right‑wing extremist attitudes and networks, noting that such groups have long admired Hitler’s armed forces and now use uncritical portrayals and symbols as coded affirmation and communication.
Christoph Heubner, deputy chairman of the International Auschwitz Committee, accused Meta and its founders of being insufficiently distant from the attitudes those posts reflect, calling them “elitist” and suggesting an authoritarian mindset among tech leaders. For Auschwitz survivors and those affected by the Holocaust, the social-media glorification is deeply hurtful. Heubner said the posts are an attack on survivors’ dignity, emotionally stigmatizing victims and treating them in a way he described as inhumane.
DW contacted Meta with a list of questionable posts and received a reply from a Hamburg PR agency that offered no substantive answers, saying only that the items were “under review” and pointing to Meta’s Community Standards. Four days later, most of the examples DW had forwarded, including the Kurt Meyer photograph, were no longer accessible. Why Instagram allowed them initially and how the company will prevent similar content remain unanswered.
This article was originally published in German.