German shop accidentally sells mugs decorated with picture of HITLER

Furniture store in Bielefeld, Germany sold the Hitler mugs in error

They feature an image of the Nazi leader alongside flowers and poetry

5,000 mugs were made in Chinese factory, which has since apologised 

German shop staff didn’t notice the design until selling 175 of them

They are now offering a £15 coupon to anyone who returns the mugs

Selling items featuring an image of Hitler is banned in modern Germany

A German furniture store is offering £15 gift vouchers to customers who return mugs that the company sold decorated with roses and poems – next to the photograph of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The sale of anything featuring the former Fuehrer is strictly forbidden in modern-day Germany and can be punishable with severe fines.

But the Hitler-decorated mugs somehow crept into the stock of the Zurbrueggen home improvement store in the city of Bielefeld – which remains a base for the British army in Germany to this day.

Error: The Third Reich-era Hitler stamp is printed between petals and poetry on the mug’s decoration, and is not immediately obvious. The store is now offering a gift voucher to any customer who returns one of the mug

The Hitler decoration on the mugs – which were made in China – came in the form of an old 30 pfennig stamp with a swastika postmark over it.

It is not immediately obvious what is depicted on the stamp, although Hitler is unmistakable under closer scrutiny.

I thought I wasn’t seeing too well when I saw I had Hitler sitting down to breakfast with me,’ said Agner Teewald, who bought one of the mugs for her morning coffee at her home in nearby Herford.

Banned: The sale of anything featuring Hitler is strictly forbidden in modern Germany

The company spoke of a ‘pretty stupid amalgam of unfortunate circumstances’ which led to the Nazi mugs going on sale.

Christian Zurbrueggen, the owner and managing director of the store, says an investigation is underway to discover how the face of Hitler made its way on to the ceramics.

The stamp is printed between petals and poetry and is not detectable with a cursory glance.

Now the store is offering a gift voucher to any customer who returns one of the mugs.

The Chinese factory that made them produced 5,000 total, although only 175 actually sold – all for less than £3 each.

The remaining 4825 cups have already been destroyed.

Now the store is offering the voucher in a bid to get back the 175 out of a batch of 5000 made in China mugs that were actually sold. They were sold for less than three pounds each.

Mr Zurbrueggen also apologised profusely and called the incident ‘truly terrible.’

He said the mugs were loaded so quickly on to company shelves that no store workers noticed the ‘embarrassing error.’

The Chinese factory responsible has also apologised and promised a full investigation
Sourced from the dailymail.com