-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro
has a habit of making controversial claims.
Recently he said there is no doubt
Nazism is a leftist movement.
-Scared about it? -There's no doubt.
Socialist party, how is it?
Germany's National Socialist Party.
-He was responding to a question from reporters
just after his visit to Yad Vashem,
the Holocaust museum in Israel, in early April.
But Bolsonaro isn't the first person to make this claim.
Linking Nazism to an opposition party
is a long-running political trope.
This iteration where Nazis are leftists
had spread widely online for almost a decade.
It's a perfect example of what we at the Fact Checker
call a zombie claim --
debunked claims that just keep coming back to life.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party
was the full name of the Nazi party in 1930s Germany,
but most of its political ideologies
were not considered left wing.
Yad Vashem's website states Nazism
grew out of radical right-wing groups.
Most historians say Hitler considered socialism
and leftism at odds with his goals,
and once the Nazis gained power in Germany, they arrested
and, in many cases, murdered socialists, communists,
and others who opposed the party.
So how has this idea that Nazism was a left-wing movement
spread so far and for so long?
This false theory likely predates the Internet,
but Bolsonaro using it now is a perfect example
of how misinformation can spread online and go unchecked.
-There's one person in Brazil who is very influential
in Bolsonaro's government.
He's called Olavo de Carvalho.
He said he's a philosopher.
He doesn't have a degree in philosophy or anything.
In 2010, he's already going to his website
and repeating this claim.
He's saying, "Well, the Nazis are from left wing."
-Carvalho was one of the early promoters of this theory online,
and others posted videos of him discussing it on YouTube.
After that, it started to spread.
-Brazil has been going through a political crisis
for a long time now.
So in 2016-2016, we were in the middle of this crisis,
and it was this very strong anti-left movement.
There's this very famous YouTuber in Brazil
called Nando Moura.
He's a member of a rock band.
Nando Moura picks this up and repeats this.
He starts saying that Hitler was not from the right wing.
Hitler was a leftist.
-Moura's video from 2015 has almost 400,000 views,
and his channel has more than 3 million subscribers.
-At the same time, Bolsonaro's sons --
they are also politicians.
They are very influential in social media,
and they start repeating this claim, as well.
They're even using false memes with false quotes,
with quotes that are misattributed to Hitler.
-The theory hasn't just caught wave in Brazil.
It's made its way into American political discourse, too.
Conservative commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza
published a book and produced a documentary
claiming Hitler was a liberal.
Donald Trump Jr.
tweeted the trailer for D'Souza's film
and has compared today's Democratic party to Nazism.
-You see the Nazi platform in the early 1930s
and what was actually put out there
and you look at it compared to, like, the DNC platform of today,
you're saying, "Man!
Those things are awfully similar."
-Two Republican Congressmen called Hitler a Socialist
as recently as March.
-Germany's Socialist Party,
more commonly known as the Nazis.
The author was Socialist Adolf Hitler in his book "Mein Kampf."
-But the potential is out there for another Hitler,
Socialist like Hitler, to come along.
-But these claims aren't said in a vacuum.
Social media often amplifies astonishing claims,
even if they're false, like this one.
-We've always had rumor and gossip,
but people were limited in the physical world to the extent
to which they could spread that kind of information.
In the digital world, gossip can go viral
and can start out in one place
and be all around the world in a matter of minutes.
The ease with which fake news spreads
is because people want to believe
really negative things about the opposition.
If you can tar the progressive left
with some association with the Nazis,
that's a great way to delegitimize that movement.
-This isn't just a tactic used by conservatives.
Democratic politicians have also called their rivals Nazis.
-Much like Hitler took over the Nazi party,
Trump has taken over the Republican Party.
-Now, we would not be surprised if in the Third Reich
other human beings were described as an infestation.
-Misrepresenting history can set a dangerous precedent.
Bolsonaro's version may have been meant as a nod at his base,
but it has far-reaching consequences.
-So I think that when Bolsonaro repeats
these claims, he's talking to his base.
He's repeating what they think.
It's an illegitimate revision of history.
It's very complicated because you weaponize history.
So, your group doesn't want to be linked to a movement
that was, according to historians,
connected to the far right,
and then you just create your own history as it suits you.
-History informs how citizens vote and how politicians govern.
When politicians of any party skew history
for their benefit, it's troubling.
It can deepen divisions in an already polarized environment.