Saturday, December 2, 2006 - 11:15 am
Shops destroy Santas giving “Hitler salute”
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German chain of shops has removed miniature wooden Santa Claus figures from its shelves and destroyed them after customers complained it looked like they were giving the stiff-armed Hitler salute that is outlawed.
Josef Lange, a spokesman for the Rossmann chain that has 1,200 outlets, told Reuters Friday the figures depicting Father Christmas with his right arm stiffly upright toward the sky and holding a sack in his left hand upset some customers.
“We were astonished by the reaction,” Lange said. “It looks like he’s just pointing up to the sky and we were surprised that anyone saw the so-called ‘Hitler salute’ in that. But we responded and had the entire inventory removed and destroyed.”
Oversensitivity in action? Hard to know since a photo is not available of the hilter santas.
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Friday, February 23, 2007 - 8:58 pm
The recent Christmas-themed episode of the TV drama “Studio 60″ had the director showing the producer a three-quarter-sized Santa statue posed as waving to his reindeer in the balcony. The producer remarked that the Santa looked like he was giving the Hitler salute and suggested removing it. The director looked again and after a moment said something to the effect that, “Now that you’ve said that, I can’t NOT see it,” then shouted to some stagehands, off-screen to, “Get rid of the Hitler Santa!”
Studio 60’s creator/writer Aaron Sorkin’s art imitating life?