Shampoo advert featuring Adolf Hitler sparks fury

A Turkish television advertisement that features Adolf Hitler apparently urging “real men” to buy a brand of shampoo has been labelled as “disgusting” and “totally unacceptable”.

The commercial for shampoo company Biomen shows archived footage of the Nazi leader yelling and gesturing wildly in a public address, while a Turkish voiceover fills in the words.

In the ad “Hitler” says: “If you’re not wearing a woman’s dress, then you shouldn’t be wearing woman’s clothes either. Here it is. A real men’s shampoo, Biomen.”

The advert, which has sparked outrage around the world, has prompted the Anti Defamation League (ADL) in the US to issue a formal complaint to the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, calling on the Turkish government to condemn it.

[Related story: Nando's drop Colonel Gadaffi advert over threats]

A statement released by the ADL read: “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.”

The Turkish Jewish community and the Chief Rabbi’s office in Ankara released a joint statement saying: “We follow with sadness and regret the use of Hitler figure in the Biomen Men Shampoo advertisement, which was brought to the screen in recent days.

“Using him in an advertisement for whatever reason is an unacceptable situation and could not be accepted by us at all. This is beyond all ethics as well as a huge insult to human rights.”

The advert has been running on Turkish TV for a week and according to reports, the company has so far refused to pull it.

Earlier this year, a Dubai fitness centre was forced to down an advert featuring photos of the train tracks from Poland's Auschwitz Birkenau death camp and the slogan: "Kiss your calories goodbye."