Volkswagen has been forced to apologise and withdraw a car advertisement that was slammed as racist and insulting.
The car giant published a video on Instagram that showed a new Volkswagen Golf parked on a street while a woman’s large, white hand pushes a black man away.
The hand then flicks the black man into a cafe named “Petit Colon”, which translates in French as the ‘Little Colonist’.
In the background, jaunty music plays, along with sound effects resembling a computer game.
German television noted that the hand could be interpreted as making a “white power” gesture, while letters that appear on the screen afterwards briefly spell out a racist slur in German.
The video prompted a storm of criticism with social media users flooding in to accuse the firm of racism.
VW initially responded by saying the “origin of the people depicted” was “irrelevant”, adding: “As you can imagine, we are shocked and surprised that our Instagram story could be so misunderstood”.
It sparked a new round of criticism, with one user writing on Instagram: “No one here got the wrong impression. This is bad and racist communication.”
Another tweeted: “The people who made this knew exactly what they were doing.”
The company was forced to backtrack and has now withdrawn the advert.
Juergen Stackmann, VW board member for sales and marketing, and Elke Heitmueller, head of diversity management, said in a joint statement: “We understand the public outrage at this. Because we’re horrified, too.
“This video is an insult to all achievements of the civil rights movement. It is an insult to every decent person.
“We at Volkswagen are aware of the historical origins and the guilt of our company during the Nazi regime. That is precisely why we resolutely oppose all forms of hatred, slander/propaganda and discrimination.”
A Volkswagen spokesman said agencies usually produced its advertising campaigns and it had launched an investigation.
The furore is particularly damaging given VW’s origins under Adolf Hitler as the constructor of the “people’s car” that employed forced laborers during the Nazi war effort.
The firm was also caught in damaging rows over its Dieselgate emissions scandal in 2015, and only last year its chief executive apologised after evoking a Nazi concentration camp slogan to describe the company’s profit strategy.
