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 On Wednesday, September 19, 2007, a prosecutor in Bolzano, in the northern Italian region of Trentino Alto Adige, near the Austrian border, seized wine bottle labels bearing portraits of Hitler and other Nazi personalities at the Lunardelli winery, the company reported.
The 20 labels from the Der Fuehrer line show Hitler raising the Nazi salute, as well as some of his generals, including Hermann Goering, the Reich's Minister of Economy, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, and Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, as well as other Nazis VIPs.
The black and white and colorized labels are imprinted with the Nazi mottos, such as "Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer" (One People, One Empire, One Fuehrer) and "Sieg heil", the slogan proclaimed by Hitler as a greeting and when speaking to the masses.
According to Bolzano state prosecutor, Cuno Tarfusser, the incriminating labels constitute the glorification of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
In the communication by the Lunardelli estate, the company said that it sells around 20,000 bottles featuring the Der Fuehrer labels per year.
The bottles are part of a product line started in 1995 called the "historic collection", which includes images of Benito Mussolini, the Italian Fascist leader, a contemporary of Hitler, for the series "Il Ventennio" (The 20-year Period – referring to the 20 years of Fascist rule in Italy), the "Communist Collection", featuring images of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Che Guevara, the series "l'800" (The 1800s), featuring Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Emperor Franz Joseph among others, and other commemorative labels, including a Biker, an "Esercito Italiano" (Italian Army), and an "art" series.
The Nazi labels stirred up controversy back in September 2003, when German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries made an official protest against their sale, claiming that the images referring to the Third Reich were "abominable and in bad taste."
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