Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out against last week’s attack on the United States Capitol, comparing the event to Kristallnacht, the “Broken Glass Night” in Nazi Germany in 1938. “The broken glass was the windows of the Capitol of the United States, “Schwarzenegger said in a nearly eight-minute video posted on Twitter on Sunday.
“But the crowd didn’t just break the Capitol windows, they broke the ideas that we thought were right. They didn’t just break the doors of the building that housed American democracy,” said Schwarzenegger. “They stepped on the very principles on which our country was founded.”
Kristallnacht was a violent anti-Semitic attack by Nazi sympathizers who destroyed synagogues, schools and Jewish-owned businesses. This led to the death of 91 Jews, while thousands more were sent to concentration camps. Nazi authorities blamed the Jews for the attack and fined the German Jewish community one billion Reich marks, or approximately $ 400 million, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“It was a night of violence against Jews in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys,” explained Schwarzenegger. The actor was born in Austria in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II. He recalled the impact of the war on his father and other people, whom he described as “broken men drinking their guilt with their participation in the most wicked regime in history”.
“Not everyone was anti-Semitic or angry Nazi. Many just followed the road step by step. They were the neighbors,” said Schwarzenegger. He started about his father, who he said would sometimes come home drunk and beat Schwarzenegger and his brothers, apparently full of guilt for his participation in World War II.
“They felt physical pain from the splinters in their bodies and emotional pain from what they saw or did. It started with lies, lies, lies and intolerance,” said Schwarzenegger. “Being from Europe, I saw firsthand how things can get out of hand.”
“President Trump tried to overturn the results of an election and a fair election. He sought a coup by deceiving people with lies,” said the “Terminator” star. “My father and our neighbors were also deceived with lies, and I know where those lies lead. President Trump is a failed leader.”
Schwarzenegger, himself a Republican, has often spoken out against Trump. This time, in his speech, he also criticized his Republican colleagues, who claimed to be “accomplices to those who carried the flag of the hypocritical insurrection on Capitol Hill”.
He said Trump will be remembered as the worst president of the United States and will soon “be as irrelevant as an old tweet”. Schwarzenegger ended his comments on a high note, however.
“Our democracy was tempered by wars, injustices and insurrections. I believe that, as shaken as we are by the events of the past few days, we will come out stronger because now we understand what can be lost, ”he said.
He also left a message for those who attacked the Capitol: “For those who think they can overturn the United States Constitution, know this: you will never win.”