German hard rock group Rammstein has provoked outrage with a video featuring the band dressed up as Nazi concentration camp prisoners.
An Israeli official has described it as “shameful and uncalled for”.
The nine-minute-long film for the single Deutschland includes scenes of the band with nooses around their necks.
Critics accused Rammstein of a cynical publicity stunt playing with Nazi-era imagery to generate media hype.
In the video, the band assumes different roles during eras of German history.
At least one band member appears to be wearing a yellow Star of David of the type Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. The video then shows the prisoners shooting people who appear to be SS guards in the face.
Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, tweeted:
This “ Rammstein “ clip , using the Holocaust for advertisement purposes, is shameful and uncalled for . We join the many voices calling for its immediate removal . @IsraelinGermany @GermanyDiplo pic.twitter.com/ZytGEPYi7T
— Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) March 28, 2019
Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner for anti-Semitism, said that if the Holocaust imagery in the video was just used to promote sales, then it was “a tasteless exploitation of artistic freedom”
Rammstein are no strangers to controversy.
The band has built its image around dark militaristic aesthetics, and in a 1998 video used footage from Leni Riefenstahl’s 1936 Nazi propaganda film Olympia.
