Ad shows German car targeting Hitler

A student-filmed proposal for a Mercedes smart car commercial shows a vehicle not only capable of identifying dangers on the road but also with the apparent ability to predict the future.

In the clip, set at the turn of the 20th century, the car — equipped with smart technology capable of braking when its sensors determine it’s about to collide with another object — is seen stopping short near two girls playing jump rope in the street.

Shortly after, a school-aged boy flying a kite is seen in the road. But this time the car doesn’t slow down. Instead it accelerates toward the child. Just before the moment of the collision, a brief shot of Hitler as a grown man flashes on the screen.

After the boy is hit, his mother screams “Adolf” and the car drives by a sign saying “Braunau am Inn,” the Austrian town where Hitler was born in 1889.

To further drive the point home, the boy is afterward seen sprawled in the shape of a Nazi swastika.

Mercedes “detects dangers before they happen,” reads the slogan at the end of the clip.

The German car manufacturer has distanced itself from the film, condemning the use of Nazi symbols and a child’s death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ12fmL_E7s