The United States has finally approved a World War 2 memorial on the mall in Washington DC. While it was strife with controversy over its placement and size, it’s nothing compared to the monument Berlin, Germany, wants to build. Strange thing is, it’s not the monument that is drawing criticism but the advertising campaign behind it.

The monument is to honor the Jews that were killed during dub dub 2 in concentration camps. In order to drum up support and start the flow of donations, a full force advertising campaign was started. Thousands of posters, postcards and newspaper ads appearing all across Germany carried a giant slogan. “Den holcaust hat es nie gegeben.” Or, “The holocaust never happened.”

The agency in charge said the shock value of the statement was intended to draw attention to the campaign, and thusly the monument. If you can get past the bold type-face words you’ll see the fine print that says the monument will help fight right-wing extremist. Problem is, no one is reading past the big bold letters on the billboards. Jewish organizations are hopping mad.

Now that’s creative thinking. In order to drum up support for a monument you label it with the most inflammatory, bigoted, ignorant statement you can. That would be like starting an ad campaign for a monument celebrating the important contribution of Lesbians and using the tag line, “Anyone smell fish?”