Nazi jokes backfire for Sydney comedy group YeahMad

Jewish leaders have condemned an Australian comedy group for making ‘ugly and deranged’ jokes about Hitler being the ‘greatest’.

YeahMad cast member Peyton Cole. Picture: Instagram

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Jewish leaders have condemned an Australian comedy group for making “ugly and deranged” jokes about Hitler being the “greatest” and making light of the numbers Jewish inmates were branded with before being led into the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

YeahMad’s YouTube show, launched in 2023, involves a comedy contest between cast members. In an episode released last week, which has attracted more than 470,000 clicks, Sydney comedian and influencer Peyton Cole faced off against Pat “Dobby” Doherty.

Cole joked: “A cute Jewish guy asked (for) my number the other day and I was like, yeah, that’s so sweet, but we use names now.”

Cast members erupted in laughter, with Doherty saying: “That was good. That was really good. Really good.”

Cole hesitated before saying: “I don’t know if that should be in it ... My housemate is going to kill me.”

Another cast member said: “Do another one, Peyton, I love this.”

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich labelled the group “bottom-feeding scavengers” and “empty, soulless clowns”.

Dr Abramovich said the horrors of the Holocaust should never be used for laughs.

“A group of so-called comedians – empty, soulless clowns masquerading as entertainers – have chosen to stomp on the memory of six million Jews to feed their desperate hunger for clicks,” he said.

“A talent contest? A joke about Hitler being the greatest? The architect of genocide, the mastermind of mass murder – this is who they choose to celebrate in their punch lines.

“What’s next? A comedy skit about babies being thrown into pits of fire?

“And then, as if one grotesque display of moral rot wasn’t enough, they doubled down – mocking the tattooed numbers that Jewish inmates were branded with before being led, naked and starving, into the gas chambers.”

Dr Abramovich argued that any attempt to turn the memory of the Holocaust into a joke was not only offensive but an assault to the victims.

YeahMad cast member Timmy Dennis said there was no Germany's Got Talent competition because ‘no one will ever be greater than Hitler’. Picture: Instagram

In an episode in November, cast member Timmy Dennis, a plumber and influencer, asked Cole: “Why is there no Germany’s Got Talent? Because no one will ever be greater than Hitler.”

The Australian approached Dennis, Cole and YeahMad for comment.

YeahMad brands itself as “the content that makes you laugh, cry and think” on its TikTok platform, which has more than 2.2 million followers. It has a further 1.9 million subscribers on its Instagram channel and another 247,000 on YouTube.

Dr Abramovich called the act a “stomach-churning” exploitation of history’s greatest crime at the expense of nothing more than a “fleeting chuckle”.

“These so-called comedians – these bottom-feeding scavengers – have decided that this, too, is fair game for their depraved little act,” he said.

“This was not just an ugly display of tastelessness – it was a deranged assault on truth, on memory, on the very sanctity of human suffering.

“This is a disgraceful attempt to wring applause from the ashes of Auschwitz.”