Hitler Appears in Shampoo Ad for ‘Real Men’
After refusing to yank an ad in which Adolf Hitler extols a shampoo brand’s masculine virtues, Istanbul-based advertising agency MARKA confirmed today that the commercial for Biomen “would not be aired again and had also been removed from the company‘s web site,” according to EuropeOnline.
In the commercial, which had aired on Turkish television, der Fuhrer gesticulates wildly while a gruff, dubbed-in voice harangues viewers that “If you’re not wearing women’s clothes, you shouldn’t be using women’s shampoo either. Here it is. A real man’s shampoo. Biomen. Real men use Biomen.”
Reaction was predictably furious from organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, which had called on Turkey’s government to “make clear the offensive nature of this advertisement….The use of images of the violently anti-Semitic dictator who was responsible for the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust to sell shampoo is a disgusting and deplorable marketing ploy,” ADL national director Abraham Foxman said in a statement Friday, according to the NY Daily News.
The Turkish Jewish community group Turk Musevi Cemaati and the Turkish Rabbinate condemned in a joint statement last week the use of footage of Hitler in the shampoo advertisement as “beyond all ethics and a huge insult to human rights… We believe and expect that the necessary sensitivity will be shown and the correction will be made soon,” according to EuropeOnline.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
