Hitler Used In AIDS Campaign

International News, By Christian Taylor, 7th September, 2009

A new AIDS awareness campaign aimed at German audiences features an Adolf Hitler lookalike having sex.

Watch the ad here:

The creatives behind the “AIDS is a mass murderer campaign” told Berlin correspondents for Agence France-Presse, “We asked ourselves what face we could give to the virus, and it couldn’t be a pretty face… The campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of AIDS back to centre stage, and to reverse the trend of unprotected sexual intercourse.”

The ad campaign also features posters of Stalin and Saddam Hussein lookalikes. It was organised by AIDS awareness group Regenbogen e.V. in anticipation of World AIDS Day on December 1.

A statement from the organisers said: “Over the past number of years, public interest in AIDS has massively declined. The number of victims, however, has not. As of now, over 30 million people worldwide have died. And every day, almost 6000 new deaths are added to that number. This makes AIDS one of the largest mass murderers of all time… Nobody should be allowed to forget these numbers. As anyone who forgets can become a victim themselves.”

More information on the campaign can be found at the AIDS is a mass murderer website.

Your Thoughts

Dsquare

said ages ago

I think you misunderstood me Asherbella. What I meant was that the image of Hitler is, to put it crudely, part of the brand "Jewish Holocaust". I can imagine the more outspoken of the German Jewish community arguing that, by using this image in an advertising campaign, it undervalues it as a reminder of the evils of the holocaust.

Asherbella

said ages ago

I think you misunderstood me Asherbella. What I meant was that the image of Hitler is, to put it crudely, part of the brand "Jewish Holocaust". Which Jew told you that? Some (and a growing number of) Jews choose to reject the word Holocaust altogether in favour of HaShoah (Hebrew). The Jewish community is a global one, not just a German one. There were Polish, Russian, Czech, Dutch, French, Ukranian, Hungarian, British, Romanian & Austrian Jews put to death, too, not just German ones..... ....the Shoah experience for Survivors is individual: for every trauma there is a coping mechanism/method of memory repression/identity & need for expression/avoidance of Nazi Germany reminiscence and no two Jews process HaShoah the same: some Survivors faint on smelling cigar smoke because the Nazi's ripped out their gold teeth & melted them into ashtrays; some Jews who survived having their teeth ripped out & had their teeth turned into ashtrays became chain-smokers. My point being there is no Jewish monopoly on suffering or ban on talking about Hitler....different strokes for different folks....talking about evil one has experienced does not endorse evil....

Dsquare

said ages ago

I'm not talking about memories of individual holocaust survivors, I'm talking about the images used by the Jewish community to represent the holocaust and, in Germany at least, to remind the gentiles that it was one of their's that did this and not to think about dropping the guilt yet. And I realise that there are other Jews than German Jews, however this is a German ad so I was speaking from the perspective of the target audience. BTW, love the "Hitler Rap". Been trying to get To Be or Not To Be on DVD for ages but can't find it.

Asherbella

said ages ago

I'm not talking about memories of individual holocaust survivors, I'm talking about the images used by the Jewish community to represent the holocaust and, in Germany at least, to remind the gentiles that it was one of their's that did this and not to think about dropping the guilt yet. I'd like to think imagery of Hitler is a UNIVERSAL symbol of fascist dominance, totalitarian abuse of power & genocide, not just meaningful/poignant to Jews alone. Jews don't need to hold up swastikas & tsk, tsk, people into feeling empathy with the Jewish experience under Hitler. We don't do that. That's silly. Jews know gypsies, homosexuals, priests, the disabled & non-Jewish journalists who wrote anti-Nazi propaganda were killed along side their relatives, friends & neighbours.... ....not to think about dropping the guilt? Ermmm, pardon? In this context (Hitler=mass murder=AIDS) the issue of responsibility is brought to the forefront, not Jewish suffering. Hitler is used here as an instantly recognisable symbol of revulsion: if you are repulsed by Hitler, you'll fight 'Hitler' by wearing a condom. It's that simple. If this advert were American, the figure of Charles Manson would've been used; in England, Jack the Ripper; in Australia, Ivan Milat or Martin Bryant would've been depicted. Fear is the selling point here, not Jewish imposed guilt on the average German. Sheesh!

Dsquare

said ages ago

O.K, these type of conversations never go well on a blog and rarely end happily, so I'm going to withdraw now before things get fiesty.

Asherbella

said ages ago

I doubt very much anyone could be rightfuly dismissed for being offended by imagery of Hitler in an ad campaign. Like I said, it's an individual thing, Jew or no Jew. I just don't appreciate you saying Jews have a Holocaust 'brand' like Hitler is an intellectual property right of Jews & every single Jew censors talk/imagery of Hitler. I'm not offended or upset by your posts: in fact I like to dispell Jewish misconceptions made by non-Jews. Anyway, all posters reading this can freely write what they wish: all posts in this thread have a point.

Anthony Mahera

said ages ago

ummm is it just me or does that women in the pic kinda look like our current vice PM?? Not to take the piss or anything but............ I find it interesting that they used Hitler to be associated with mass murder when the bastard was financed by the alliance. hmmmm suspicious p.s. why didn't they use George W Bush?? Oh right he was the President and if the President commints a crime, it's not a crime (famous words of Dickhead Nixon)

Flaneur

said ages ago

I loved this Hitler advertisement, thoroughly, it appealed to the immature part of me when he mentioned the creams and later the man-pistols. I think that will be part of the problem, though, with this ad since you either flinch at it and reject it or you laugh at it. I don't see anything productive coming out of it. Someone (gbin?) also mentioned the whole scare tactics idea and I agree, in essence, it only serves to stigmatise and promote ignorance but do you think the positive campaigns really work either? Here's one from France that a number of you probably have already seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2uwPn2_Le0 Do you really feel at all affected by that? I know that I didn't. I also agree that being a member of the queer community can provide an education and awareness of transmission, I've heard a number of straight guys say that "as long as you fuck a white girl you don't need a condom" which is just ... wrong but an all too common idea in some areas. The thrust of the problem is that we, the queer community, don't seem to be doing much with our awareness as recent statistics shows that the number of persons gaining HIV through male/male sex is increasing (interestingly, the far more ignorant straight community seems to be increasing at an even faster rate even though they have fewer in raw numbers). Maybe scare tactics is what we need at the moment, considering the massive effects of the grim reaper series of advertisements and the increasing problem we're having in Australia. At least it'll do something.

Asherbella

said ages ago

The invincibility factor of HIV being a minor inconvenience instead of being an incurable disease in the face of new, promising vaccine trials is the problem here. 'Even if I get HIV I can still look healthy for 10-15 years without it impairing my physique/sexual performance'. That's the problem. Vanity of gay men not wanting to live past fifty for fear of looking old & haggard, regardless of whether they're HIV+ or not. The Dorian Grey complex. Youth obsession. Fuck hard, die young, remembered fresh. There are no aspirational gay figures in the community that live past fifty besides Quentin Crisp & then even he's rejected by the 'straight-acting' brigade for being femme.

Flaneur

said ages ago

The invincibility factor of HIV being a minor inconvenience instead of being an incurable disease in the face of new, promising vaccine trials is the problem here. 'Even if I get HIV I can still look healthy for 10-15 years without it impairing my physique/sexual performance'. That's the problem. Vanity of gay men not wanting to live past fifty for fear of looking old & haggard, regardless of whether they're HIV+ or not. The Dorian Grey complex. Youth obsession. Fuck hard, die young, remembered fresh. There are no aspirational gay figures in the community that live past fifty besides Quentin Crisp & then even he's rejected by the 'straight-acting' brigade for being femme. I'm not sure the invincibility idea is the problem here, a lot of people actually don't realise that contracting HIV isn't a death sentence anymore. To use the straight community as an example once again; their awareness of the issue is much less and to many of them the idea of AIDS is still one of a terminal disease however the rate of transmission for them is rising (the amount of women per year who have gotten HIV from intercourse with men has doubled since the mid 00's if my memory serves). It's not the vanity of gay men which is a core issue here, it's the 'it won't happen to me' trope (as I implied above, which makes it less threatening) paired with the pursuit of pleasure ('it feels better', 'condoms are inconvenient'). It's not just young gay men who are of this mindset either. There are, of course, specific issues amongst us, the increasing problem of bug chasing and 'gifting', as an example, within the queer community of gay and bisexual men who pursue unsafe sex with HIV positive men for the explicit purpose of contracting HIV. I just don't think it's quite so simple as saying gay men are vain and vapid, it's an increasing problem for us all whether we're gay, straight, bi or anything else and ascribing it to the vanity of gay male youth isn't productive.

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