Monday December 4 9:56 AM ET
German Faces Charges for Selling
Adolf Sofa Set
By Fiona Shaikh
BERLIN (Reuters) - A furniture-shop owner should be charged with
breaking Germanys
anti-Nazi laws for naming chairs and sofas after Adolf Hitler and
other Third Reich leaders,
a local Jewish community leader said on Monday.
Michael Fuerst, leader of the Jewish community in Lower Saxony state,
urged state
prosecutors in Hanover to charge store owner Franz-Georg Schwetje with
violating strict
laws against glorifying the Third Reich for using names such as Adolf
and Hermann for
his sofa sets.
Schwetje ran advertisements for his sofa sale in a local newspaper in
Hildesheim, 18 miles
south of the central city of Hanover, bearing the name Three-piece
sofa set Adolf --
marked down to 2,998 marks ($1,600) from 5,998 marks.
He also listed a Cabinet Rommel and Chest of drawers Paulus after
World War Two
generals Erwin Rommel and Friedrich Paulus. The Hermann three-piece
sofa set, which
recalls Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, was also marked
down.
The ads represent a clear glorification of the Third Reich and we have
urged the state
prosecutors to initiate legal proceedings against Schwetje, Fuerst
told Reuters. Well have
to see what charges the state prosecutors decide to raise.
Schwertje insisted there was no Nazi connection.
I simply passed along the names that my suppliers provided, he told
Reuters in a
telephone interview. Im not a Nazi and I dont want to have anything to
do with such
people. Those right-wing extremists should be locked up.
Schwetje, 57, added that he could not remember writing the
advertisements because he
takes pain-killers for bone cancer. He nevertheless said the names
were harmless -- and that
he had relatives in mind rather than Nazi leaders.
If Id given the furniture a name like Sachsenhausen, that would be a
different matter,
said Schwetje, referring to a notorious Nazi concentration camp. But
the sofa suite
Hermann is named after my uncle -- Hermann Schwetje.
The Greens party in Lower Saxony called for a boycott of the furniture
store. The local
chambers of commerce were also considering legal sanctions.
Not one of my customers has complained about the adverts, Schwetje
said. But the
Jewish community said they were offended. So I am going to make a
donation to the Jewish
group. Im not sure how much, but at least 1,000 marks.
Germany has been plagued by a surge in far-right crime since unity in
1990. The German
government has responded by seeking to ban the far right National
Democratic Party.
