Explosion Norway

[Jan Klimkowski]

Glenn Beck. American ignorance personified.

Glenn Beck compares Norway's dead teenagers to Hitler youth

Glenn Beck, the leading Right-wing American broadcaster, has prompted outrage after comparing the teenage victims of the Utoya Island massacre to the Hitler Youth

By Jon Swaine, New York7:41PM BST 25 Jul 2011

Beck said that the Labour party youth camp on the island, where 68 people were murdered, bore "disturbing" similarities to the Nazi party's notorious juvenile wing.

Beck, a multimillionaire darling of the Tea Party movement, said on his nationally-syndicated radio show: "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."

Torbjørn Eriksen, a former press secretary to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister, described the comment as "a new low" for the broadcaster, who has frequently been forced to apologise for offensive remarks.

"Young political activists have gathered at Utoya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful."

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a Washington-based campaign group, said the remark by Beck, a free agent after being forced out of the Fox News channel earlier this year, was "absolutely disgusting".