Chilean president apologizes for writing Nazi-era slogan

German history can be a tough minefield for visiting dignitaries to navigate, but Chilean President Sebastián Piñera should still have known better than to write "Deutschland uber alles" in a government guestbook on his trip to Berlin: The phrase Sebastian Pinera wrote was "Deutschland uber alles," or "Germany above all." It became infamous under the ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

German history can be a tough minefield for visiting dignitaries to navigate, but Chilean President Sebastián Piñera should still have known better than to write "Deutschland uber alles" in a government guestbook on his trip to Berlin:

German history can be a tough minefield for visiting dignitaries to navigate, but Chilean President Sebastián Piñera should still have known better than to write "Deutschland uber alles" in a government guestbook on his trip to Berlin:

The phrase Sebastian Pinera wrote was "Deutschland uber alles," or "Germany above all." It became infamous under the Third Reich and after World War II was excised from Germany’s national anthem as too nationalistic.

Piñera says he learned the slogan in school during the 1950s and ’60s and understood it to be a celebration of German unification under Otto von Bismarck.

He adds that he was unaware it was "linked to that country’s dark past."

Piñera said Monday he’s sorry, and asked to be forgiven.

I guess we can also safely assume Piñera isn’t a Dead Kennedys fan.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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