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Samoa’s prime minister apologised on Monday for his actions captured in a video from nearly two decades earlier, according to a statement issued through the government press secretariat. Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt acknowledged that the words and gesture in the clip were inappropriate and capable of causing offence regardless of the original context at the private event. The prime minister rejected Nazism, antisemitism, racism and all forms of political extremism while stressing that the footage had not been intended for public release and did not reflect his beliefs or those of Samoa’s government and people. Schmidt added that he now considers the matter addressed.
The Samoa Observer first published details of the seven-second clip on Sunday after obtaining the historical footage from a Schmidt family reunion held on the island of Savai’i in July 2007. In the video Schmidt, who was then an MP and deputy speaker of parliament, holds a microphone and leads about a dozen participants through a call-and-response of “hip hip” and “hooray” before instructing them to raise their right hands while saying “Heil Hitler”. Al Jazeera reported that Radio New Zealand independently verified the authenticity of the footage through its correspondent based in the country. The newspaper noted that academics it contacted had criticised the content.
Schmidt became Samoa’s eighth prime minister in September 2025 after his party won the general election the previous month, a development covered widely by regional outlets including the Samoa Observer. The prime minister has both Samoan and German heritage, which local reports noted in coverage of the controversy without offering further explanation for the 2007 incident. His statement, published on the government’s Facebook page, described the matter as now addressed following the public emergence of the clip.
Coverage quickly spread to international outlets such as CNN and The Independent, which detailed the sequence of events and the prime minister’s swift response. The reports emphasised that the footage did not show what occurred immediately before or after the exchange depicted. Schmidt has not provided further explanation of the circumstances surrounding the 2007 event.
Historical records show that Germany administered Samoa as a colony from 1900 until the First World War. Worldometer figures based on United Nations data place the current population of the Pacific island nation at roughly 220,500 people. The country sits about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii.
Since taking office Schmidt has positioned himself as a strong supporter of Israel, even wearing a Jewish prayer shawl and participating in the sounding of a shofar during his swearing-in ceremony. The Telegraph reported that he told journalists at the time that Samoa would not withdraw its backing for Israel as the country of God’s people. Such public gestures stand in contrast to the content of the resurfaced video yet were cited in several accounts as part of the prime minister’s broader record on related issues.
