Minister of Culture of Brazil quotes Goebbels, but says it was "rhetorical coincidence"

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Bolsonaro's first year as president of Brazil 1:35

(CNN) - Brazilian Culture Minister Roberto Alvim apparently cited Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, in a video announcing a National Arts Award published on the Ministry's Facebook account.

In the video, Alvim defends that Brazilian art has nationalist ideals and says: “The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and national, will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional participation and will also be deeply committed to the urgent aspirations of our People, or it will be nothing. ”

Many in Brazilian public opinion quickly noticed that the phrase resembled a quotation presented in the biography of the Nazi minister written by Peter Longerich: “The German art of the next decades will be heroic, will be tremendously romantic, will be objectively objective, will be nationalist with Great pathos, will be both committed and unifying, or it will be nothing. ”

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Alvim responded quickly, calling the reports that he had cited Goebbels as a “fallacy” on the left, saying that “he would never [cite Goebbels]”, while at the same time acknowledging that in his speech there was “a coincidence with a phrase from a speech by Goebbels. ”

"It was a rhetorical coincidence," Alvim wrote. "But the phrase itself is perfect: people's heroism and aspirations is what we want to see in national art."

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According to the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, the National Arts Award aims to "support projects in seven categories in all regions of Brazil."

"The idea is to move forward in the construction of a new and vigorous Brazilian civilization, with artists capable of understanding the movements that spring from the heart of Brazil."

In addition, from the reference to Goebbels, the background music that is played during Alvim's announcement is Richard Wagner's Lohengrin, who played a decisive role in Hitler's life.

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"At the age of twelve, I saw the first opera of my life, Lohengrin de Wagner," Hitler wrote in the first volume of Mein Kampf and added that it had helped him confirm his "deep-rooted aversion" to the career his father I had chosen for him. "I wanted to become a painter, and no power on earth could make me a military."

Adolf HitlerJair BolsonaroNazi