Government officials and Jewish leaders have condemned the German metal band Rammstein for apparently referencing Holocaust imagery in their new music video.
A teaser clip for "Deutschland" showed Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann and his bandmates dressed in striped prison uniforms, with nooses around their necks.
While the teaser did not appear to shown any explicit reference to the Holocaust, German newspaper Bild, translated via Reuters, quoted a number of leading public figures who spoke out against the video.
Felix Klein, the German government's commissioner for anti-Semitism, called it a "tasteless exploitation of artistic freedom" while Charlotte Knobloch, former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the band had "crossed a line".
"The instrumentalisation and trivialisation of the Holocaust, as shown in the images, is irresponsible," she said.
The full video is expected to air later today (28 March). It is the first new material from Rammstein's as-yet-untitled seventh album, which is scheduled for release in April and will mark the band's first full-length release in a decade.
