The editor of top German newspaper Die Welt has made a surprising statement saying that Germany should be “more gay” in order to tackle the problem of Donald Trump.

As the paper is known for being conservative, the comments in an editorial from the paper’s editor in chief Ulf Poschard came as a surprise to some.

His comments came in response to controversial comments made by the US President-elect.

He wrote: “We must defend ourselves against Donald Trump and become more courageous, more industrious, more innovative, freer, more open, more gay, more multicultural.”

The words quickly were picked up and made into a meme posted on social media.

But the online version of the article was edited to include the phrase “more creative”, or “kreativer”, rather than “more gay”, or “schwuleren”.

“Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Cabinet have been right to promote, popularise, and engage in global politics in tough diplomatic struggle,” he wrote in the editorial.

“The distribution of global prosperity will, in the future, be aggressively decided by the US in its favour – if we do not resist and become better, more courageous, more diligent, innovative, free, open, gay and multicultural.”

The change from “gay” to “creative” proved controversial for some, including Queer.de, which accused Poschard of bowing to “right-wing populists”, and that the change was “embarrassing”, given the original message of the editorial.