Minister sacked for ‘Goebbels’ art video

Roberto Alvim, Brazil’s culture minister, said in a video that Brazilian art “will be national ... or it will be nothing”, echoing the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels
Roberto Alvim, Brazil’s culture minister, said in a video that Brazilian art “will be national ... or it will be nothing”, echoing the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels
EPA

Brazil’s culture minister has been sacked after he made a video promoting nationalism and religion in art, using phrasing remarkably similar to that used in a 1933 speech by the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Roberto Alvim, 47, who bears a passing resemblance to the German fascist, delivered the live Facebook broadcast from the library of the official presidential residence in Brasilia on Thursday.

Looking sternly towards the camera, with a large wooden cross behind him, he declared Brazilian art “in the next decade will be heroic” and “will be national . . . or it will be nothing” — exactly the same words used by Goebbels in a notorious speech he made calling on German artists to follow the “vision” of Nazism.

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