Update (9/18/24): After the publication of this report, TikTok removed at least one account that we identified as posting seemingly AI-generated English-language Hitler speeches. Despite this removal, content with these speeches is continuing to circulate on the platform. After publication, Media Matters identified another such audio of Hitler, which has been used at least 273 times.

Audio clips of Hitler giving speeches in English, which appear to be AI-generated, have been proliferating on TikTok, earning millions of views. Some users have been promoting and praising the audios in an apparent violation of TikTok’s community guidelines.

While some of these audios — which are often poorly translated and set to slow, reverb instrumental beats — have been removed, Media Matters has identified accounts dedicated to uploading this content. At least one of these accounts is still live and posting regularly.

The platform’s community guidelines prohibit “promoting (including any praise, celebration, or sharing of manifestos) or providing material support to … individuals who cause serial or mass violence, or promote hateful ideologies.” The dissemination of excerpts of Hitler’s speeches seems to violate this policy. 

Media Matters has identified numerous videos with these English-language Hitler speeches posted as far back as April 7, 2024. However, since early September, videos with these audios have been proliferating across the platform. TikTok has since removed some of the videos that Media Matters identified, but only after some had earned hundreds of thousands, or even over a million, views.

One video, which had earned roughly 120,000 likes and over 1 million views prior to removal, featured an excerpt from a speech Hitler gave on the 19th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch (a failed coup d’etat by the Nazi Party in November 1923) and portrayed an image of Hitler standing with his back turned to the camera with the text: “Just listen.”

The excerpt of the speech — which appeared to be slightly different than a translation posted by the Jewish Virtual Library Project — is layered on top of a slow instrumental beat, and suggests that Hitler did not want to go on the offensive during World War II, that he tried to save women and children, and that he waited until he had no choice.

While some TikTok users expressed skepticism in the comments about this portrayal of Hitler, other comments embraced this fantasy. Some users wrote: “He was a hero,” “Winners write history,” “The great painter,” and “Maybe He Is NOT The Villain.” (“The painter” is presumably a reference to the Nazi leader’s failed art career.)

While Media Matters was viewing this video, TikTok’s search-prompting feature suggested the search “the painter english speech,” indicating that the platform was reducing friction for users to find more of Hitler’s speeches.   

Another video using the same sound — which has since been taken down — featured a visuals of cliffs by water and the hashtags “true,” “nature,” “europe,” and “1161” (seemingly a right-wing dog whistle for Anti-Anti Fascist Action or AAFA).

The video had at least 22,700 likes and over 270,000 views prior to removal. Some users commented: “AH was a good and kind man,” “now i know why they didn’t translate this before,” and “this changed my views on him.” 

Some TikTok users were quick to turn this audio into a meme that appeared to mock Hitler for feigning innocence. For instance, in one video with 2.4 million views, a user lip-synchs to the AI-generated Hitler speech with text on screen reading, “when i pooped in the urinal in 3rd grade.” In a video with over 520,000 views, a user donning full military gear lip syncs to the Hitler speech while the text on screen reads “When there beef in the GC and your involved.” This audio was used at least 251 times prior to its removal. 

Another supposed Hitler speech focused on cultural decline; Hitler spoke on that topic, but Media Matters could not verify the accuracy of the translation.

Users were quick to turn this audio into a meme as well. One such video, with 197,400 views, compares “the furniture my grandparents left me vs the furniture I’m leaving my grandkids” with the caption “Preservation is a must.” 

Other users lip-synched to the AI-generated Hitler speech with text on screen reading “pov: gen alpha in 2035 when skibiti toilet comes out as bisexual and baby gronk overdoses on galaxy gas 2.0,” “POV: a guy just asked me if I wanted to see a Marvel/DC movie,” and “pov: you stuck talking to that mf that gets political after a line [of cocaine].” 

A third seemingly AI-generated Hitler audio on TikTok featured an excerpt from a speech he gave in January of 1939, also overlaid on top of a slow instrumental beat. Prior to its removal, this audio was used at least 55 times, with some of the videos earning hundreds of thousands of views.

A video using this audio with nearly 500,000 views and over 64,000 likes reads, “name a character no one can make you hate,” and then shows an outline of Hitler. While the sound had been removed, this video was still up at the time of writing.

Another video, with 394,000 views, featured what looked like an AI-generated image of a white, blond girl in a Union Jack T-shirt standing in the middle of a bus and crying while surrounded by laughing nonwhite people in hijabs and taqiyahs. The comment with the most likes read, “We need the painter.” 

Another video, with over 650,000 views and 90,000 likes, used this audio along with pictures of two bowls of ice cream, one with chocolate and vanilla mixed and one with just vanilla, which seemed to insinuate disdain for racial integration. 

Media Matters also identified several accounts dedicated to posting these Hitler audios.

One account with 20,500 followers and over 3.8 million cumulative views across 12 videos posts videos with these Hitler speeches, a silhouette of the German mass murderer, and the text “Growing up is realizing Who the villain Really was.”

One explicitly antisemitic video, blaming a “small rootless international clique” who are “at home both nowhere and everywhere who do not have anywhere a soil on which they have grown up” for “turning the people against each other,” has received over 1.6 million views. The excerpt seems to come from a speech Hitler gave at the Siemens-Schuckert plant in Berlin in 1933. At the time of writing, this account was still up. 

Media Matters identified another account seemingly dedicated to posting these reconstructed Hitler speech audios that has been removed by TikTok. The most popular video on the account, with over 87,000 views, was an English-language excerpt from Hitler’s July 1940 speech “My Last Appeal to Great Britain.” 

As AI becomes increasingly popular for content generation, novel forms of disinformation that promote hateful ideologies and misrepresent historical facts will follow. Social media platforms must be aware that this technology is being used to cause harm and take proactive measures to prevent it from proliferating on their platforms.