Admin comment: A news item from Germany that really needs a double facepalm.
An animal trainer for German television and movie productions has come under fire for teaching a dog called Goldie to give the 'Heil Hitler!' salute.
Goldie raises her right paw in homage to the Fuehrer in a new production about the destruction of the airship Hindenburg that airs next weekend.
The Zeppelin crossed the Atlantic in May, 1937, but crashed and burst into flames upon landing, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and bringing to an end the age of airship travel.
Goldie plays the pet of a cabaret artiste opposed to the Nazis in the two-part dramatisation.
"Goldie is a professional film dog and has learned many things in his time," said Hannes Jaenicke, the actor who will appear with him.
"It was my idea to get him to raise his paw in the Hitler salute. He got a biscuit each time he did it and an animal welfare specialist was on hand throughout. Animals are strictly regulated when they work for German TV."
But some politically correct animal lovers have branded the salute training a "form of cruelty." Why make a poor dumb animal pay reverence to history's greatest killer," Jens Mueller from Berlin asked?
Several years ago, a crazed neo-Nazi pensioner was jailed for teaching his German Shepherd Adolf to give the Nazi salute outside schools with high numbers of immigrants. His dog was given away to spend the rest of his life with a family with no radical political affiliations.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that a real dog called Jackie saluted when Hitler's name was mentioned in wartime Finland.
In 1941, just before the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, Berlin told diplomats to gather notes on Finnish businessman Tor Borg's pet, as they felt it was insulting to Hitler.
The Telegraph
