Wiesenthal Center Praises Online Retailer for Dropping “Hipster Hitler” Products

June 6, 2011

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today hailed the announcement by the Australia-based RedBubble website that the controversial “Hipster Hitler” material would no longer be sold by RedBubble. The material included t-shirts that spoofed Hitler as a trend-setting twenty-something and included phrases like “Back to the Fuhrer,” and “Three Reichs And You’re Out.”

In a letter to Mark Weitzman, the SWC’s Director of Government Relations, RedBubble CEO Martin Hosking stated that, “we have decided to moderate a range of controversial work on the site related to portrayals of Hitler, the Holocaust and related events. Given the nature of the controversy, I doubt we are going to be able to make sufficiently nuanced decisions about which work from Hipster Hitler would remain on RedBubble. As a result I would not anticipate hosting any of this work on RedBubble in the future.”

Weitzman had written to Hosking last week after receiving complaints by artists about the material. Responding to Hosking’s letter, Weitzman said that the action taken by “RedBubble” was a strong statement that put moral responsibility ahead of commercial gain. “By being responsive to the concerns raised by artists, the Jewish community and others, they have modeled how conscience and commerce can intersect,” he said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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