An alleged gaffe has seen the Immigration Department rush to avoid accusations of Nazi denial.

The unfortunate placement of the word ‘allegedly’ in a departmental statement this week kicked off an online furore.

Michael Pezzullo, the Department of Immigration and Border Security secretary, put out a missive in response to comparisons between Australia’s offshore detention regime and World War II-era German gulags and concentration camps.

The comparison was made in a paper in Australian Psychiatry last month.

“Recent comparisons of immigration detention centres to ‘gulags'; suggestions that detention involves a ‘public numbing and indifference’ similar to that allegedly experienced in Nazi Germany; and persistent suggestions that detention facilities are places of ‘torture’ are highly offensive, unwarranted and plainly wrong — and yet they continue to be made in some quarters,” Pezzullo’s statement read.

Had the word ‘allegedly’ been placed three words earlier in the sentence, the statement may have gone unnoticed.

It is an interesting sign of the times that a federal department is forced to defend itself against comparison with one of the most hateful regimes the world has seen, but that may be a subject for a different kind of furore.

Media circles and online commentators seized on the phrase “allegedly experienced” as suggesting denialism, forcing the department to rush out a second clarifying statement.

“Any insinuation the department denies the atrocities committed in Nazi Germany are both ridiculous and baseless,” Pezzullo said in the follow-up.

“This has been wilfully taken out of context and reflects deliberate attempts to distort this opinion editorial to create controversy.

“The term ‘allegedly’ was used to counter claims of ‘public numbing and indifference’ towards state abuses in Nazi Germany and the link to immigration detention in Australia. We reject the comparison to immigration detention as offensive and question this being made as a blanket statement — an allegation hence ‘allegedly’ — to describe the attitude of the German population at large during that terrible time.”

Sandi Logan, a former communications head and spokesperson at the department, was asked about the issue as the stream of online response unfolded.

Mr Logan has been a vocal critic of the agency under Pezzullo ever since leaving the department in 2013.

“Aside from the nuance associated with how to correctly use the adverb ‘allegedly’, especially when talking about the Nazis, this stuff-up is symptomatic of an organisation ... inured to any sense of reality,” he told reporters for The Mandarin. 

“I understand the sincerity in the intent of Mr Pezzulo’s message which was as much for internal consumption — supporting staff doing a very tough job — as it was for external attention,” he said.

“The problem is twofold: I have seen these facilities and they are clearly — almost three years later — designed to snuff out any optimism or hope for those detained, as well as act as an ‘in-your-face’ deterrent to people smugglers and/or others considering arriving in Australia by boat.

“Sadly, Mr Pezzulo has for too long said too little about his department’s operations — a complete Berlin wall of silence — and when he does, it’s always reactive, poorly phrased and, as in this instance, foot in mouth.”