Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, once again unwitting made herself the internet’s Main Character on Tuesday after an undercover reporter released a secretly recorded conversation in which she nastily complained about her neighbor’s Pride flag and bizarrely declared “I’m German.”
“Look at me. I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German,” she told a documentary maker who was posing as a conservative activist. “You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you. And there will be a way—it doesn’t have to be now—but there will be a way they will know. Don’t worry about it.”
It was a single soundbite among a conversation full of flat-out MAGA-fueled weirdness from Martha-Ann, but the vagueness and perceived implication of her German heritage set the internet ablaze on Tuesday.
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Her claim to be “German, from Germany” was cited by many as being particularly bizarre considering Martha-Ann was, in fact, born in Kentucky and is American. Many others, including the writers Franklin Leonard and Jay Willis, questioned what exactly she meant by the statement.
“I do not care how sauced you are, ‘Look at me, I’m German. I’m from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you’ is a legitimately deranged thing to say to someone you just met,” Willis wrote on X.
Leonard offered a similar take, suggesting Martha-Ann’s statement was potentially a nod to Nazi Germany.
“It’s extremely unnerving to hear,” he said, adding in a later post, “Bless her heart. She’s from Kentucky.”
The actor Jon Cryer, of Two and a Half Men, was also taken aback by Martha-Ann’s vague—but seemingly aggressive—reference to her German ancestry.
“That’s… a really interesting view of the history of the German people,” he wrote.
Stefanie Weiss, an author, offered a fiery take, too.
“Martha Alito basically said ‘Naziism is in my blood and soon I’ll be able to get those dirty Jews who own the media, because my husband is making it possible. Also, fuck them gays,’” she wrote, adding that she believes Martha-Ann is a “trailer trash bitch.”
While many made sure to not discount the seriousness of Martha-Ann’s insinuation, others had fun with the Alito family slipping into a trap laid by a progressive reporter—especially on the heels of a tumultuous month in which they’ve been criticized for flying flags associated with the Capitol riot at their Virginia and New Jersey homes.
“Mostly this makes me think Mrs Alito is going to don a German drindle outfit, line up some dudes to paddle on the arse with a big piece of wood, eat several sausages and then make up words by ramming four of them together into one while also telling the world’s least funny jokes,” wrote the political consultant Liz Mair.
Another joked to X, “Mrs. Alito’s comments do not sound better in the original German.” Multiple other posts compared Martha-Ann to the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, and others joked about Samuel Alit0’s heritage being Italian.
“When Italians and Germans ally, it never works out for the world, or for them either,” wrote one user on X.
“I did Nazi that coming,” joked another.
Scores of other Americans with German heritage also chimed in to clarify that Martha-Ann’s comments—whatever they were supposed to mean—didn’t reflect how the majority of German-Americans think.
“‘German’ and ‘Nazi’ are NOT synonymous,” wrote one user. “Most of my heritage is German—I’d prefer that Ms. Alito use the correct term when describing herself.”
Another added, “Those of us who are German and NOT a nazi sympathizing racist a-hole would love to show her how it all works.”
