Q: Can anyone who has visited the Topography of Terror museum in Berlin seriously compare Catalan civic nationalism with the atrocities of the German NSDAP?

A: Yes I can and you are a Nazi

I admit that this conversation is slightly paraphrased – I can’t be bothered to sift through all of Twitter to find the actual tweets, but that’s more or less how it went. I think I had a go at someone on Twitter for their constant use of a hashtag like #CatalanesNAZIonalistas or something. To be fair to him, he gave as good as he got and insisted that like me, he had visited the Topography of Terror museum [which, were it about almost any other topic, I’d call ‘excellent’ but that seems in rather poor taste], in fact he’d been there twice [beating me, you see] and yes, it was definitely a fair comparison. Well, you can’t argue with that, can you?

Another conversation I had went something like:

Man: Oh living in Catalonia now is like being at the Nuremberg rallies

Me: But it’s obviously not. You can’t really mean that.

Man: Yes I do they are the same [I suspect he really did punctuate properly but it this is the way I remember idiots writing]

And maybe they are. For all I know, they are the same. I mean, I wasn’t around then. All I have to go on is archival evidence, witness accounts, half a century of scholarship on the subject, hundreds of documentaries and books, and extensive museums like Berlin’s Topographie des Terrors. And that’s probably not enough. There are only two logical conclusions I can draw from this: either the initial statements are wrong and Catalonia isn’t “the same as Nuremberg” or Germany as the Nazis rose to power was a very pleasant place to live – a place in which I’d have thrived. I almost feel cheated.

For my learned friends who have shown me the truth, I only have a few questions before I settle down to life in my new fatherland. When will they burn the parliament down? Are people wearing Barça shirts the equivalent of the Print My Logo UK SA? Why don’t they beat more people up? In fact, where are all the beatings?! I was promised beatings! When will the Generalitat burn/quietly sell off all the degenerate art it owns? Why did Mas step down if he’s to lead us to the new dawn? Who’s the Catalan Julius Streicher? What the hell are they doing allowing people like the CUP to run around, causing mischief? Why can’t they get the real Nazis on board? That, for me, is a big one. They should have a quiet meeting with the real Nazis and say “Look guys it’s OK, you can stop calling us “Nazis” now: we’re real Nazis like you” and then we’d all be on the same team. Also why do they keep inviting the opposition on TV and radio. All the time. I like my totalitarians to be a little more total, dig?