An Amazon customer has called for a puppy training manual to be removed from sale “immediately” after she found it contained a full reprint of a 1930s Nazi propaganda book.
Lorraine Phipps purchased the Puppy Training manual from the online retailer and was shocked to find a book eulogising Adolf Hitler printed inside.
“I bought a purported puppy training book from Amazon on March 2,” she said. “When my husband and I went to read it, despite the cover being as expected, it was actually a reprinting of a 1936 pro-Nazi propaganda book.”
Ms Phipps said that she had asked Amazon to remove the “awful and misleading item from their listings” three times and had been told that they were “investigating”.
As of Monday March 30, the listing was still live on the Amazon website. The reviews from the US do not flag any issue with the book.
The propaganda book printed inside is Adolf Hitler, 1931-1935: Pictures from the Life of the Führer and was originally published in 1936 with a foreword by Hermann Göring.
The Nazi tome contains 203 photographs and has accompanying text authored by the highest-ranking Third Reich officials, including propaganda chiefs Joseph Goebbels and Otto Dietrich, as well as Robert Ley, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess, Baldur von Schirach and Fritz Todt.
The book eulogises Adolf Hitler’s achievements, ideology and work.
It was originally sold without photographs, which owners would purchase separately as a collection.
All the authors, except for Fritz Todt who died during the war, were tried and convicted at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1945 and 1946.
The complete version of Pictures from the Life of the Führer - without the Puppy Training cover - is for sale on the US Amazon site, where it is described as “one of the crowning popular propaganda achievements which helped consolidate Hitler’s hold on power, this book had sold millions of copies by 1940 and was one of those specifically ordered destroyed by the Allied occupation forces after 1945”.
The Nazi book is also for sale on the British store, where eight used and three ‘new’ copies are on sale for between £7.42 and £55.04.
Amazon has previously been criticised for selling antisemitic literature and children's picture books, including those authored by Nazi-era propaganda officials.
For the avoidance of doubt, there is no suggestion that the publisher of the Puppy Training manual has any pro-Nazi tendencies.
In a statement on Wednesday, Amazon said: “We apologise to the customer for this issue, which was caused by a one-off printing issue with a supplier. Our supplier has confirmed that steps have been taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
