Mercedes Angry at Hitler Run-Over Video

By Anne Cohen August 28, 2013

Mercedes is less than pleased with a student-filmed phony advertisement depicting a young Hitler getting run over by a C-Class luxury sedan.

The video, filmed and released by German film school students for a competition sponsored in part by Mercedes-Benz, shows the car meandering around an Austrian village — Hitler’s hometown. We see the car break for two little blond girls who scatter out of the way before the engine revs up again, and the vehicle plows into young Adolf playing further down the road.

The image of adult Hitler (what could have been) flashes for a split-second upon impact, while the boy’s mother screams his name. “Detects dangers before they come up,” the end tag declares.

According to the Huffington Post, Mercedes spokesman Tobias Mueller, called the content “inappropriate,” and added that the company’s lawyers ordered the students to include a disclaimer noting that their video has absolutely no relation to their brand.

Asked about their project by the Independent, film students Tobias Haase, Jan Mettler, Lydia Lohse and Gun Aydemir replied: “Mercedes sells its cars on smart technology which prevents accidents. We wanted to pose the question of what might happen if technology had a soul.”

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

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