Online retailing giant Amazon has removed two listings selling busts of Adolf Hitler.
The company has also taken down a nutcracker in the image of Hitler, which appeared to use a Sieg Heil movement to crack nuts.
The listing for one of the busts – which costs just under £100 – made no mention of Hitler’s atrocities, instead commended him for inventing modern weaponry, lowering unemployment and restoring Germany’s power in Europe.
“Hitler went from an ordinary student to the world hegemon, and people admired his spirit of taking risks and dare to conquer the world,” it reads. “Everything he did in front of him was also to strengthen his motherland – Germany. His patriotism is worth learning by future generations.”
The listing's only criticism of Hitler was that he “dragged Germany and the world into the abyss of the Second World War.”
The other Hitler bust listing carried a series of customer reviews. One wrote that he had bought it for a neighbour who collected Nazi memorabilia.
“My Adolf had a nose job, it looked like someone hit him slightly with a hammer. I think someone was trying to tell me to keep my nose out of this stuff, and rightly so,” it read.
“You would have to be in all fairness, a pretty sick individual to own a bust of Adolf. But as far as the product goes, it was good for the money and I had a laugh at my neighbors [sic] expense.”
Another wrote: “Perfect for those occasions when you absolutely MUST have a statue of a mass murderer on display. Can't wait for the Pol Pot!”
When one user asked what was meant in the product description by it being “not for use”, another answered: “As a baby’s comforter, an orangutan’s chew toy, a washing up brush or indeed as a doorstop in a synagogue.”
Amazon declined to comment.
Karen Pollock MBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, asked: “Who in good faith wants to own a bust of the man who led all of this horror? And who would think it was acceptable to sell it?
“It can only be to glorify fascism and hate, and it is beyond belief that this needs to be pointed out."
She added that HET had “already asked Amazon to review and change their policies having found Nazi propaganda, speeches and writings on their site – clearly this needs to be done sooner rather than later.”
Previously, Amazon removed two books from sale which accuse Jews of having “played an exceptionally active role in promoting and inciting war” and “harbor a deep-seated hatred of humanity”.
In February, HET criticised the retailer for selling an antisemitic children's book by a convicted Nazi official, and in December last year a line of Auschwitz-themed Christmas decorations were pulled from the website.
