The dark history of the Mettler family is revealed: a great-grandfather nicknamed “Hitler-Mettler”, Nazi party donations, and an SS officer uncle – all resurfacing after Nemo returned the Eurovision trophy in protest over alleged genocide.
Nemo, the winner of Eurovision 2024, made global headlines last month after taking a dramatic step – returning the winning trophy to the contest organizers. The reason: a protest against Israel’s participation, which Nemo accused of committing “genocide”. Nemo, who often speaks about “values”, “inclusivity”, and “respect for all people”, chose to exclude Israeli performers from his message of unity. However, an explosive investigation published this Wednesday reveals that while Nemo preaches morality to the Jewish state, his own family history hides dark skeletons – ones dressed in SS uniforms and Nazi insignia.
“Hitler-Mettler”: The Great-Grandfather Who Idolized the Führer
Born as Nemo Mettler, the artist comes from a well-known, wealthy family from St. Gallen, Switzerland. A report by Christoph Mörgeli in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche has uncovered that his great-grandfather, Arnold Mettler-Specker, a prosperous textile industrialist, was a fervent admirer of Nazism – so much so that locals nicknamed him “Hitler-Mettler”. During World War II, Arnold and his wife Elsa lived in a lavish villa surrounded by fine art, while funding fascist and antisemitic movements in Switzerland, including the National Front.
Their antisemitism went far beyond ideology – it was tangible and cruel. When asked to donate to a campaign aiding Jewish refugees, Elsa refused, chillingly stating:
“Swiss Jews have so much money that they can help their suffering brethren themselves”.
According to local historical records, the couple dreamed of building “an authoritarian Europe under fascist leadership”.
The SS Officer Uncle: “Died for the Führer”
The most disturbing revelation involves Nemo’s great-great-uncle, Hans Martin Mettler. While Nemo now visits Kyiv and posts photos in bomb shelters in a show of solidarity with Ukraine, his ancestor traveled to the very same region around 80 years ago – but under vastly different circumstances. Hans Martin was a committed Nazi who illegally volunteered for the Waffen-SS, defying Swiss law. He trained in a camp named after Heinrich Himmler and was dispatched to the Eastern Front as part of the “German Volunteers”. In his final letter to his parents, he wrote:
“Do not think my death was in vain… What are we if not leaves on a tree – what does it matter if one falls? What matters is that the tree keeps growing”.
He was killed in the Battle of Kyiv in 1941. His father, “Hitler-Mettler”, unsuccessfully tried to publish a death notice glorifying his son’s “fight for the Führer”. The local paper censored it, but in his private notes Arnold later wrote:
“He found his inner liberation through Adolf Hitler”.
End of the War — and the Suicide
The Mettler family’s loyalty to Nazi ideology was absolute. In May 1945, barely two and a half weeks after Nazi Germany surrendered, Arnold Mettler committed suicide by gunshot. He remained faithful to Hitler until his final moments, refusing to believe reports about the extermination camps, dismissing them as “atrocity propaganda”.
Hypocrisy Without Limits
Today, Nemo, who constantly champions equality and tolerance, seems to ignore this blood-stained family background while pointing condemning fingers at Israel. While his ancestor took his own life in 1945 fearing punishment for treason, Nemo now chooses to boycott artists from the Jewish state. In his article, Christoph Mörgeli highlights the glaring irony: Nemo presents himself as a moral crusader outraged by “genocide”, yet he blacklists the very nation born from the ashes of the Holocaust – an atrocity enabled by the ideology his own family once supported. Nemo speaks in terms of O’s and 1’s, and ironically violates his own song’s main message. The article states:
“If Nemo moralizes about the Middle East conflict, he must understand that the very existence of Israel is tied to the genocide of the Jewish people. He should have acknowledged that his family once supported Nazism intellectually, practically, and financially – an ideology responsible for that genocide in the first place”.
It’s worth recalling that the Swiss singer snubbed Israeli representative Eden Golan backstage in Malmö, persisting with a rigid “black-and-white” narrative. Although Nemo recently claimed he had “studied the Israeli-Palestinian issue in depth”, it appears he skipped a crucial history lesson—the one his own family wrote in blood.
Switzerland at Eurovision 2025
“Voyage” is the title of the song performed by Zoë Më, who represented Switzerland in the grand final of Eurovision 2025, held in Basel, Switzerland. Switzerland finished tenth in the final with 214 points – all awarded by the jury. Switzerland ranked second among the juries, but received last place from the public, with zero points.
Since the change in the selection process in 2019, Switzerland has consistently achieved relative success and has regularly qualified for the grand final of the contest.
Eurovision 2026: This will be Switzerland’s 66th participation in Eurovision. Switzerland joined the contest in 1956, was one of the seven founding countries, and has won three times over the years. Switzerland’s most recent victory was at the last Eurovision, 2025, with Nemo and the song “The Code”. This win follows Switzerland’s previous victory in 1988 with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi”, performed by the international singer Céline Dion.
