Deloitte terminated one of its employees for openly admiring Adolf Hitler’s “charismatic” traits in a recent LinkedIn post meant to inspire readers. These views, albeit personal to Neerabh Mehrotra, who worked as associate director at Deloitte, managed to create a stir on social media.
The fact that Mehrotra — who is part of the risk advisory division of the company and based out of India — chose to appreciate the dictator’s so-called positive qualities that were worth emulating, and overlook how he had orchestrated the genocide of six million Jews, did not go down well with social-media users.
What made it worse was Mehrotra’s statement that people should learn from Hitler. The post was supposed to inspire people on a Friday!
Mehrotra, in his post, stated that he was inspired by Hitler after reading the book The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler authored by Laurence Rees. He then proceeded to outline several significant attributes exhibited by Hitler, using adjectives such as “charismatic” and “magnetic” while appreciating the dictator’s oratory skills and confidence. He even called him an intellectual and a man of action.
According to Mehrotra, people used to actually enjoy Hitler’s speeches and that he truly and genuinely wished for Germany to be prosperous. Mehrotra chose to salute Hitler at the end of the post in clear admiration!
Not surprisingly, readers criticised the post and soon after Mehrotra took it down amidst heavy backlash. He also posted an apology conveying that it was his personal opinion and that it had nothing to do with his “race, religion, country or the organisations I am associated with at the moment or in the past”. He stated how he had been taught by seniors and mentors that one should always accept one’s mistakes and learn from them, which is what he was doing by writing the apology note.
However, Deloitte chose to take strict action against Mehrotra and fired him, barely a month after he joined. The organisation has made it clear that Mehrotra’s views do not align with Deloitte’s values and are in violation of the company’s policies, inviting applause from social-media users.
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