Speculative Fiction writers have spent decades toying with the various paradoxes presented by time travel – What happens if you go back in time and inadvertently sleep with your own grandmother? Or step on a Jurassic-era insect? Or, what if you went back to the early 20th century and straight up killed Hitler?
It’s that line of thinking that’s got three German film students in hot water, after their Adolf-killing car commercial ran afoul luxury auto makers Mercedes-Benz. Check it out:
Just one thing, though – Mercedes fucking made fucking cars for fucking Nazis! Those big fancy Nazi-mobiles schlepping Adolf and Co. from morning book burnings to afternoon Final Solution-ings? Mercs, the lot of ’em.
I recognize Mercedes is caught between a reich and a hard place: Do they let these students’ commercial, featuring a hit-and-run on a kid (even if it is one of the 20th century’s greatest monsters,) pass without comment? – OR- do they remind people that they used to build the real Hitler’s favorite cars? It’s a lose/lose proposition. I’m sure they’d like to think that 70 year later, they’ve reached a point where they should no longer be under special scrutiny for their Nazi past. And, perhaps they have. But, the simple fact that they have a Nazi past at all means – fair or not – they’re not the ones who get to decide how long that albatross hangs around their collective neck.
Ultimately, when it comes to untangling a complicated Nazi past, it might just be easier to build a time machine, off Adolf, and and save yourself the hassle before it even starts.
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