SHARE
COPY LINK

NAZI

Toy UFO taken off shelves for ‘teaching kids that Nazis achieved space travel’

Toys and models manufacturer Revell based in North Rhine-Westphalia has announced that one of their products, an aircraft described as a war machine during the Nazi period, will no longer be produced.

Toy UFO taken off shelves for ‘teaching kids that Nazis achieved space travel’
Photo: Revell via Amazon.de

A spokesperson from Revell said on Monday that the company will stop manufacturing and distributing the product, adding that criticism of it is “absolutely justified.”

The German Children's Protection Association (DKSB) and the Military History Museum (MHM) in Dresden had previously criticized the product for its inaccurate representation of history.

In its product description, the toy is called a “round aircraft” and “the first object in the world capable of flying in space.” The description goes on to say that the aircraft can fly “up to speeds of 6,000 km/hr” and it was not produced after its test phase in 1943 due to the Second World War.

Emblazoned with emblems from the Third Reich, the product is presented as a war machine from the period of the Nazi regime even though an aircraft like this never existed, according to the DKSB and the MHM.

“At that time it was technologically impossible to build something like this,” historian Jens Wehner from the MHM told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper.

The fact that Revell's product’s description fails to mention the aircraft never existed is risky in that people who buy it might actually believe the Nazis possessed superior technologies, Wehner added.

“Enthusiasts can use this as a strategy to cast doubt on what we know today about National Socialism,” the historian said.

The company said it agrees with the MHM, adding that “it is in fact a legendary, extraordinary aircraft which cannot be proven in terms of its existence.”

“Unfortunately, our product description does not adequately express this and we apologize for it,” Revell said in a statement. A spokeswoman emphasized that Revell explicitly distances itself from any kind of glorification of wars and the Nazi period.

Revell is currently looking into how a product of this nature was developed and brought onto the market. The development of a new product usually takes the manufacturer at least one year. Product managers are responsible for the development of models and toys and sometimes suggestions from fans are taken into consideration.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

NAZI

Austrian rapper arrested over neo-Nazi songs

Austrian authorities said Tuesday they have arrested a rapper accused of broadcasting neo-Nazi songs, one of which was used by the man behind a deadly anti-Semitic attack in Germany.

Austrian rapper arrested over neo-Nazi songs
Austrian police officers patrol at the house where Adolf Hitler was born during the anti-Nazi protest in Braunau Am Inn, Austria on April 18, 2015. Photo: JOE KLAMAR / AFP

“The suspect has been arrested on orders of the Vienna prosecutors” and transferred to prison after a search of his home, said an interior ministry statement.

Police seized a mixing desk, hard discs, weapons, a military flag from the Third Reich era and other Nazi objects during their search.

Austrian intelligence officers had been trying for months to unmask the rapper, who went by the pseudonym Mr Bond and had been posting to neo-Nazi forums since 2016.

The suspect, who comes from the southern region of Carinthia, has been detained for allegedly producing and broadcasting Nazi ideas and incitement to hatred.

“The words of his songs glorify National Socialism (Nazism) and are anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic,” said the interior ministry statement.

One of his tracks was used as the sound track during the October 2019 attack outside a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle.

In posts to online forums based in the United States, the rapper compared the man behind the 2019 Christchurch shootings that killed 51 people at a New Zealand mosque to a saint, and translated his racist manifesto into German.

Last September, an investigation by Austrian daily Der Standard and Germany's public broadcaster ARD said that the musician had been calling on members of neo-Nazi online forums and chat groups to carry out terrorist attacks for several years.

They also reported that his music was used as the soundtrack to the live-streamed attack in Halle, when a man shot dead two people after a failed attempt to storm the synagogue.

During his trial last year for the attack, 28-year-old Stephan Balliet said he had picked the music as a “commentary on the act”. In December, a German court jailed him for life.

“The fight against far-right extremism is our historical responsibility,” Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said Tuesday.

Promoting Nazi ideology is a criminal offence in Austria, which was the birth place of Adolph Hitler.

SHOW COMMENTS