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17 Feb, 2017 15:19

Does British-born Trump adviser have neo-Nazi links?

Does British-born Trump adviser have neo-Nazi links?

The British-born adviser to the US president, Sebastian Gorka, has been forced to deny sympathies to neo-Nazi groups after publicly wearing a medal associated with Hungarian fascism.

Gorka, who is of Hungarian extraction, has been spotted at various Trump events wearing a military medal of the ‘Vitezi Rend,’ or ‘Order of Heroes,’ a political group from his ancestral homeland.

The order consists of supporters of Miklos Horthy, a former Hungarian leader who critics say collaborated with Nazis.

Horthy, who was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, once wrote: “Concerning the Jewish problem, for all my life I have been an anti-Semite.

I have never had contact with Jews. I have considered it intolerable that here in Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theatre, press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad.

To replace the Jews, who have everything in their hands… requires a generation at least,” he said.

Gorka has fiercely defended his wearing of the medal, while denying he has any sympathies for fascism.

He told the far-right Breitbart News that the medal represented “underground organisations of pro-democracy, anti-Communists to work about the Soviet dictatorship.

In 1979 my father was awarded a decoration for his resistance to dictatorship and, although he passed away 14 years ago, I wear that medal in remembrance of what my family went through and what it represents today to me as an American.

However, the Independent reported that Gorka may have his own loyalties to Vitezi Rend because his PHD thesis is signed “Sebestyen L. v. Gorka.

The paper said that the inclusion of the initials ‘L’ and ‘V’ are granted to members of the order and passed on to oldest sons when a member dies.

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