Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Mercedes Angry at Hitler Run-Over Video

Mercedes is less than pleased with a student-filmed phony advertisement depicting a young Hitler getting run over by a C-Class luxury sedan.

The video, filmed and released by German film school students for a competition sponsored in part by Mercedes-Benz, shows the car meandering around an Austrian village — Hitler’s hometown. We see the car break for two little blond girls who scatter out of the way before the engine revs up again, and the vehicle plows into young Adolf playing further down the road.

The image of adult Hitler (what could have been) flashes for a split-second upon impact, while the boy’s mother screams his name. “Detects dangers before they come up,” the end tag declares.

According to the Huffington Post, Mercedes spokesman Tobias Mueller, called the content “inappropriate,” and added that the company’s lawyers ordered the students to include a disclaimer noting that their video has absolutely no relation to their brand.

Asked about their project by the Independent, film students Tobias Haase, Jan Mettler, Lydia Lohse and Gun Aydemir replied: “Mercedes sells its cars on smart technology which prevents accidents. We wanted to pose the question of what might happen if technology had a soul.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.