Polish Club In Trouble Over Hitler Image

A Warsaw nightclub could be in trouble after using an image of Adolf Hitler to promote an event.

The state prosecutor is investigating whether Sklot, which is in Warsaw’s bohemian Praga district, has broken the law by using a picture of a somewhat animated Hitler wearing a pair of bright yellow glasses.

In Poland it’s illegal to use images or symbols associated with totalitarian regimes if they are deemed to be promoting a political system. The investigators are determining whether the club’s management intended to glorify Hitler or made an innocent mistake.

A spokesman for Sklot has conceded that the organisers had “made a mess of things.” He issued an apology and said the club didn’t mean any offense.

“We distance ourselves from any attempt to glorify or promote the Third Reich,” he said in a statement online. “No malice was intended and we have great respect for history.”

That hasn’t been enough to appease some Poles, particularly those with experience of how the country suffered catastrophic loss of life and destruction at the hands of Hitler’s forces.

“I am surprised and astonished that in 2010 somebody could print something like this,” Warsaw uprising survivor Edmund Baranowski told a local radio station.

In a somewhat related story, Britain’s advertising watchdog has pulled a radio ad featuring a man speaking loudly in German while the voice-over asks: “Is your boss a bit of a tyrant?” The Advertising Standards Authority received 13 complaints from listeners who felt it used an outdated stereotype.

It banned the ad for breaching rules on good taste and decency.

Industry body the Radio Advertising Clearance Center said it believed most listeners would regard the scenario as humorous and inoffensive.