XR co-founder: Holocaust 'just another f--kery'

The German branch of Extinction Rebellion distanced itself from Roger Hallam on Wednesday, the co-founder of the movement, after he said the Holocaust was "just another f--kery in human history."

The environmental activists called Hallam's comments "harmful" and "relativizing" in both content and teminology, in a statement posted on Twitter.

His comments were "not representative of XR Germany and he did not discuss his comments with us in any way," said the group in a statement posted on Twitter. This applies to his views on democracy, sexism and racism, the statement continued.

The group also sought to minimize Hallam's importance to the movement, pointing out that he was just one of 15 founders.

Hallam's harmful Holocaust comments

Extinction Rebellion Germany was responding to an interview published in German publication Die Zeit   on Wednesday.

In the interview, 53-year-old Hallam spoke about the Holocaust, saying genocides were "to be completely honest, almost a completely regular event," using the example of the Belgians who "decimated" the Congo.

He also said that German attitudes towards the Holocaust were holding Germany back.

Hallam, who comes from the UK, wrote the paper "Common sense for the 21st century" — the Extinction Rebellion movement had previously called this significant in its contribution to its tactic of widespread civil disobedience, such as large numbers of participators setting out to get arrested.

Every evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.