By John Dempsey, WLS-AM 890 News

A Chicago Tribune photo from Donald Trump’s canceled Chicago rally this past Friday has gone viral.  It features an older woman in a Trump t-shirt making what appears to be a Nazi salute.

The New York Times has identified the woman as 69 year old German-born Birgitt Peterson of suburban Yorkville.

Peterson told “The Jonathan Brandmeier Show” on WLS that she made the Nazi salute not because she is a Nazi, but to teach a history lesson to anti-Trump protesters who were holding up signs comparing the Republican Presidential candidate to Adolf Hitler.

Peterson told Brandmeier, “Anybody that stands around, and is not educated enough about world history, and compares any other person, any other man, woman or whatever to Adolf Hitler, and incorrectly, and calling me those names…those people, if they are drawing absolutey obscene and ridiculous signs and words into the air, I said  ‘If you wanna compare anything, then you have to learn first how it was done.’   And I lifted my arm and everybody there went into a panic.”

Peterson said she went to the rally with her husband Don to support Donald Trump.   She tells the Times that “The Republican Party needs to be broken up, and I believe Donald Trump is the one to do it.”    She also says “Absolutely I’m not a Nazi, no.   I’m not one of those.”

The Chicago Tribune photo of Peterson has gotten wide distribution online, and was also featured prominently on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.”

Visit www.brandmeier.com to listen to the segment!

@ WLS-AM 890 News, 2016