adminBERLIN — A German firm has apologised for producing condoms marked with offensive messages that were used in a far-right party’s campaign against immigrant births. The contraceptives, ordered by the youth wing of the National Democratic Party (NPD), came in black boxes bearing the slogan “For foreigners and certain Germans”. The activists sent them to lawmakers as a protest against “unchecked immigration”.
The message had a particular resonance in the country where the Nazi party also tried to control childbirth, encouraging people considered pure-blood Germans to breed, while going as far as sterilising people from other groups.
The condoms came with a letter, telling lawmakers: “We are protesting against unchecked immigration and the resulting population change in our country.
“You are failing to provide the foundations for a family policy which will halt the demographic catastrophe facing our people,” the letter added.
Volker Beck, a member of parliament from Germany’s Green Party, complained to the maker of the condoms, R&S.
The company apologised and pledged to donate 10 000 condoms as well as the proceeds from the NPD order to a German foundation against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism.
“We are very sorry that this major error happened and that our condoms were connected to such propaganda,” R&S head Axel Roth said in a statement. “We should have been more careful when checking the printed material.”
Germany tried in 2003 to ban the NPD, a party branded “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence service, but failed. Banning political parties is also sensitive in Germany, after the Nazi and Communist regimes silenced dissent. — Reuters
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