An employee of consulting giant Deloitte has been fired after lauding the “charismatic qualities” of Adolf Hitler in a “Friday inspiration” LinkedIn post last week.
Neerabh Mehrotra, who listed himself as an associate director in Deloitte’s “Risk Advisory” department in India, wrote that the populist dictator responsible for overseeing the murder of six million Jews had “several charismatic qualities" adding that: "we should all learn from him.”
Among the “charismatic qualities” of the Third Reich leader, Mehrotra says, is that he was a “massive action taker” and a “charismatic visionary”, but stops short of describing what those actions were or what reality was envisioned.
“People used to enjoy his energetic and patriotic speeches and his pure intention for great Germany,” the post read.
'Friday Inspiration' LinkedIn post from Deloitte India employee, May, 2023
Second part of a 'Friday Inspiration' LinkedIn post from a Deloitte India employee, May, 2023
Mehrotra said he had been inspired after he read “The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler” by Laurence Rees.
According to Mehrotra, the “morale”, or moral, of the post, is that “everyone of this planet earth has some good and some not so good qualities.”
The post finishes with, “As the Nazis salute says, ‘Heil Hitler!’”, followed by a #inspiration hashtag and a picture of Hitler surrounded by Nazi Party members giving the Sieg Heil salute.
The now-deleted post was quickly screen-shotted and met with immediate backlash, and allegedly picked up and shared by “The Aussie Corporate” Instagram page that has over 76,000 followers.
Shortly after, Mehrotra posted an “Open Apology Letter” in which he apologised “to each one of you whose sentiments/feelings were hurt,”
He claimed to have “no intention to hurt anyone’s feelings” but admitted that he “should have been more careful,” while promising that he would “not write anything about such personalities in the future.”
“I would also like to clarify that this was my personal opinion, and it has nothing to do with my race, religion, country or the organizations I am associated with at the moment or in the past.”
Apology post from Neerabh Mehrotra, May, 2023
A Deloitte spokesperson told the JC: “The views on social media expressed by the individual, who joined our organization last month, are not aligned with our shared values and violate our internal policies. This individual no longer works for Deloitte India.”
