NYT: "
Cups With Hitler’s Image Are Investigated in Germany"
The kitschy, vintage-style cups were on sale for three days at the Zurbrüggen stores before anyone noticed the small stamp showing the profile of the Nazi dictator above the word “Reich,” complete with a swastika postmark.
“Our workers are dismayed and embarrassed, the producer has apologized for the error, and we have apologized to our customers for this terrible mistake that resulted from a chain of unfortunate circumstances,” Mr. Zurbrüggen said in a telephone interview.
Customers have been offered a 20-euro gift certificate in exchange for returning their Hitler cup, which originally sold for 1.99 euros.
So far, 16 of the 175 sold have been returned, reflecting a certain popularity of the cups that caught the attention of the German media and even stirred the interest of the country’s Museum of Contemporary History.
“It is our mission to collect objects that have a relevance to contemporary culture,” said Peter Hoffmann, a spokesman for the museum in Bonn. The museum’s interest does not lie in the uproar surrounding the cups, Mr. Hoffmann said.
“It’s the story that is behind the cup that is interesting,” he said. “But we don’t know right now how it came to be, whether it was intended as a joke, or was simply ignorance.”
Germans are highly sensitized to reproductions of Nazi symbols, which are banned in the country, and move swiftly to remove them or take action against anyone displaying them. Yet in spite, or perhaps because of this, every time an image of Hitler pops up somewhere, it still causes a sensation.
