AIDS ads featuring Hitler character draw fire

An ad produced by a German ad agency explicitly shows an anonymous couple having sex before revealing the man to be a sneering Hitler, followed by the tagline “AIDS is a mass murderer.”

An advertisement depicting Adolf Hitler engaged in sexual intercourse as a metaphor for the deadliness of AIDS has drawn the ire of groups devoted to spreading awareness about the disease.

The 45-second ad, produced by the award-winning Hamburg-based ad agency das comitee on behalf of Regenbogen E.V., a German AIDS group, explicitly shows an anonymous couple having sex before revealing the man to be a sneering Hitler, followed by the tagline "AIDS is a mass murderer."

Monique Doolittle, executive director of the Canadian AIDS Society, said that while she can appreciate the intent behind the ad, she believes it backfires.

"I'm really concerned that it will actually strengthen the stigma. With the ad, you can't separate HIV and AIDS from the person with HIV, so it's sending the wrong message."

The campaign's website said the ad is to be played on German television and film screens next week to promote World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Three print ads, featuring Hitler, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Soviet strongman Josef Stalin, were also featured on the website.

"The campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of AIDS back to centre stage, and to reverse the trend of unprotected sexual intercourse," a statement on the website explains.

Doolittle agreed that it will likely get people talking about the virus, but added there were other aspects the campaign overlooked.

"We need to talk about prevention, we need to talk about using condoms, we need to talk about AIDS still being out there," she said. "But we need to reduce stigma and discrimination."