German satirical magazine Titanic has again caused controversy, referring to Austria’s incoming Chancellor Sebastian Kurz as “Baby Hitler” while picturing him alongside the car crash that led to the death of former Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Jorg Haider.
The picture of Kurz next to the deadly car crash is the latest cover of the magazine and has the caption, “Austria on Crash-Kurz: Baby-Hitler gets his driver’s license!”
The magazine released a preview of the cover on Twitter, writing, “TITANIC turns a gear higher”.
One Twitter user commented on the post saying, “Belittling of national socialism? Hope it delivers something that drives you to ruin.”
On the website of Austria’s largest newspaper Kronen Zeitung the comments were even more critical of the magazine.
“Satire should be funny but that is not funny but tasteless. I’m not a Kurz-fan, but to publish something like that is really the bottom of the barrel and has nothing to do with satire,” one user wrote.
“Again, there seem to be no consequences?” another wrote in reference to the previous time the magazine had called Kurz “Baby Hitler” and put a gun target over him with the words, “finally it’s possible to kill Baby-Hitler!”
Police in Vienna responded to the first picture saying they would investigate the matter as many were calling it a public endorsement for the assassination of the 31-year-old.
Kurz is expected to be the next Chancellor of Austria after his Austrian People’s Party won the national election earlier this month and recently entered coalition talks with FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache who took over the party shortly after the departure of Jorg Haider.
The coalition talks are the obvious reason for including a picture of the car crash that killed Haider in 2008. A new ÖVP-FPÖ coalition will be the first time the FPÖ has entered government since Haider led them to a third-place result in 2000.
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