A Russian shopping centre has apologised after not recognising a picture of Adolf Hitler without his moustache and posting it on their ‘wall of fame’ of war heroes to celebrate Victory in Europe day.
The startling gaffe came from the ‘Cosmos’ shopping centre in the city of Chelyabinsk in the western Russian region of Chelyabinsk Oblast and was reportedly the result of a joke in poor taste.
The shopping centre created a ‘wall of fame’ for Russian war heroes for the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe day and were posting images of the soldiers online as well as on big screens inside the shopping centre.
However, when paying tribute to Russian soldier Sumin Vladimir who died on the Eastern Front in 1945, the shopping centre accidentally displayed a photo of Adolf Hitler.
Netizens were quick to express their outrage and the shopping centre have now publicly apologised for the incident.
The shopping centre’s head of advertising Ildar Yarulin, said: “We launched this project for the nation to get to know its heroes from WWII and called people to send their relatives’ photos with a short description of how they helped the army beat the Nazis
Ildar said: “Our team was mostly focused on the description of the feat, so our social media marketing specialists somehow did not notice the bad joke and proceeded with the story.”
He added that the marketing specialist who allowed the Hitler post to be published had been reprimanded but it is unclear if they were removed from their position.
The post has been removed from social media and the police are currently searching for the person responsible.
Russian hero Vladimir joined the Soviet army in 1942 and died in 1945 during the Vistula-Oder Offensive, a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in January 1945-
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Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News
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