This is simply too good not to be mentioned, although probably the – admittedly involuntary – comedy will likely be lost on my anglophone readers.
A little background first: Because the morale in Germany could use a little boost these days, the federal government hired a PR company to create a little campaign for just that purpose. That PR company came up with the slogan “Du bist Deutschland” – “You are Germany”. In a time of relative economic hardship and insecurity and what seems to be a general feeling of estrangement between politicans and those they represent it comes as little surprise that the campaign has met with its share of satire.
It doesn’t help that the logo resembles a little turd.
Now, however, some people have unearthed photos from Germany’s distant past. And [because he was Germany](http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21419/1.html) the campaign is about to suffer even more:
One might think that this photo of Hitler with (almost) the same slogan is just a clever and tasteless Photoshop-Job; however, it seems to be [a real photo from 1935](http://www.medienrauschen.de/archiv/2005/11/23/vernetzung-du-bist-nazi/) published in the book Ludwigshafen – ein Jahrhundert in Bildern
Oh the sweet irony.
_Update, some time later:_ Lars corrects me in that the campaign was not started by the government, but by [Bertelsmann](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2308415.stm).
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