German metal band Rammstein has whipped up a fresh controversy by posing as Nazi death camp victims in a new music video. Have the shock rockers finally crossed acceptable lines of artistic freedom?
'Deutschland', the lead single from the group's upcoming album, has been making waves in Germany, Israel, and elsewhere in the world due to the graphic imagery featured in the nine-minute music video released Thursday.
Also on rt.com German shock rockers Rammstein spark outrage with Nazi camp video teaserThe video, which is an attempt to reflect on the defining moments in German history, has racked up over 15 million views and earned both praise and condemnation. The outcry has centered on a segment that shows lead singer Till Lindemann and his bandmates being hanged while dressed in concentration camp uniforms.
Efraim Zuroff, a historian from The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a Jewish human rights organization, told RT that "there has to be some limits" when dealing with historically loaded issues such as the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany.
"This is really not the way to deal with the subject as sensitive as the Holocaust," Zuroff said.
The backlash has been led by the Israeli government, which accused the band of "using Holocaust for advertisement purposes." But not everyone agrees.
While the video might not be to everyone's taste, it certainly has educational value in it, freelance journalist Luc Rivet told RT.
The simplified and romanticized depiction of the Holocaust might be the only way to reach out to young people who otherwise would hardly have any interest in the topic, he said.
"They bring the message of the horror of the camps to young people, working-class people who probably haven't got a clue really, even in Germany, of what happened 60 years ago."
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