Donald Trump Tweets A Picture With Nazi Soldiers, Deletes It Afterward

Donald Trump tweeted a picture for his new presidential campaign yesterday with his face superimposed on an American flag with soldiers, a $100 bill and the White House in the background with the slogan, “We need real leadership. We need results. Let’s put the U.S. back into business!”

What Trump apparently didn’t notice was that the soldiers in this image were actually Nazi SS German soldiers from World War II. Author John Schindler, who is a WWII specialist, was one of the first Twitter users to discover the gaffe. He gave his arguments credibility with pictures of the Waffen-SS tunics, showing the likeness with Trump’s photo.

#MEGAFAIL ===> Yes, those aren’t just WW2 Germans, they’re Waffen-SS in the Trump campaign pic https://t.co/BSFNuNrK6R

— John Schindler (@20committee) July 14, 2015

Notice the late-war Waffen-SS “dot” camo tunic, with SS eagle on left arm as in the Trump pic https://t.co/b3pwWmdwHY pic.twitter.com/ulScwicbZU — John Schindler (@20committee) July 14, 2015

Trump quickly deleted the tweet, and his spokesperson responded to the controversy by saying that an intern was responsible for the graphic. According to writer Reed F. Richardson, the Nazi photo wasn’t actually taken during the war, but was one of modern WWII reenactors.

Found @realDonaldTrump‘s german soldier stock image here (searched “world war II soldiers”) https://t.co/GKkcNTUKpm pic.twitter.com/ysWGeePZIr

— Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) July 14, 2015

Despite the major fail, Trump is still leading the GOP field, according to the latest USA Today national survey made up of “likely Republican voters” – 17% of them consider Trump as their “first choice of the Republican nomination.” But Jeb Bush is very close behind him with 14% of those polled. As the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center David Paleologos told USA Today, “we’ve seen Donald Trump make it to the top, but the question is can he stay on top.”