A winery in Italy will discontinue making bottles with a picture of Adolf Hitler on them the next year because they are “sick of the issue.”
Since 1995, the Friuil Venezia Giulia-based winery Vini Lunardelli has been offering a selection of wines with images of General Franco, Josef Stalin, and Lenin.
The bottles have long been the target of criticism, especially from Jewish organisations who claim the vintners celebrate Hitler and make fun of his atrocities.
The 37 distinct Nazi bottles in the vineyard’s collection, which include phrases like “Sieg Heil” and “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer,” will be discontinued, according to Andrea Lunardelli, who anticipates taking over the winery next year.
Although the wines are illegal in Germany and Austria for disseminating Nazi propaganda, they are available for purchase online and in more than 50 outlets across Italy.
Andrea asserts that he is “definitely not a Nazi,” and the firm has always maintained that it is not “political.”
However, he told Vice World News that Hitler was the most often requested moniker, particularly by Germans, but also by many British, Nordic, French, and Russians. However, no Italian wants Hitler.
When he replaces his father Alessandro in the next year, he said that the firm will stop producing the whole historical line.
Andrea said he was tired of the issues and that the outcry over the bottles was exaggerated.
“Whoever buys it is a collector, or remembers history, or wants nationalism against the present-day practises of global corporations… not against Jews,” he stated.
We may even claim that alcohol and Hitler are a wonderful joke since Hitler was a teetotaller.
Jewish organisations have regularly denounced the bottles, which frequently frighten visitors who see them in European stores.
This month, a well-known Austrian cosmetic physician said that visitors were making the trip to Jesolo, which is close to Venice, to purchase the €8.50 bottles.
Vienna-based Dr. Dagmar Millesi expressed his disbelief at seeing the bottles on the stores.
‘The shop assistant claimed Germans very much prefer to purchase these wines, and they are certainly the main hit there,’ the famous facelift expert told the local media.
Nobody is upset about it, and no one bans it, the saleswoman said, amused by my fury. I was unable to believe it.
The Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Antisemitism in Germany criticised the line, saying that it was insulting to all Nazi victims and their descendants.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called for a boycott and protested the wines on many occasions, alleging that Nazi sympathisers are purchasing them as collections.
The bottles were labelled “outrageous” by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s director of international social action.