The Hitler Shop
A clothing store’s inflammatory propaganda
If they did it for the publicity, mission accomplished. The two proprietors of a store called Hitler are gaining international recognition for being ignorant.
The clothing store, opened recently in the Indian metropolis of Ahmedabad, is brashly adorned by the name of history’s most hated man in the colors of his Nazi party. The storefront also includes a swastika, formerly an ancient emblem of good fortune but since World War II loathed for symbolizing the momentum of hate and destruction. Above the store entrance, it dots the letter i in Hitler.
Is there any excuse? Certainly there’s a precedent in pop culture for co-opting political imagery, from the Ché Guevara T-shirts worn by hipsters to the offensive depictions of Obama and Romney this campaign year. There’s even the web comic Hipster Hitler, though comedy and satire, even when it’s not terribly funny, generally gets a pass since all the power in humor comes from surprise and sometimes shock. But the owners of the Hitler shop don’t even own up to a misguided attempt at being clever or kitschy.
"Hitler was a nickname given to my business partner Manish Chandani’s grandfather because of his strict nature," co-owner Rajesh Shah reportedly told The Times of India. "Frankly, till the time we applied for the trademark permission, I had only heard that Hitler was a strict man.... It was only recently that we read about Hitler on the Internet."
In a weak attempt to cool down the incendiary reception to his store — while still bucking for publicity — Shah has been pictured in front of the shop wearing a Gandhi T-shirt. Mahatma Gandhi, history’s antithesis to Adolf Hitler, lived in an ashram just outside of Ahmedabad for 12 years of his peace-loving life.
Photo: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
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People thought General Dwight Eisenhower was crazy when he told cameramen to get photographic evidence of the Holocaust when the concentration camps were located in 1945 because, as Ike said, sometime in the future people will claim the killing of millions by Hitler's Nazi government never happened. We are seeing the first wave of the "...Hitler really wasn't as bad as everone says..." with this store who promotes Hitler. Not to mention co-owners Manish Chandani and Rajesh Shah are idiots.
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