Civic educationist claims use of numerical and alphabetical codes on number plates in Christmas ad was deliberate

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Germany’s largest supermarket chain has been criticised for a Christmas television advert that appears to contain covert neo-Nazi symbolism.

The ad for the Christmas range at Edeka features two cars with number plates displaying codes commonly used by neo-Nazis to identify themselves to each other.



A Volvo shown in the 84-second clip has the number plate MU SS 420. “SS” is forbidden on German number plates because it is synonymous with the Schutzstaffel, the Nazis’ paramilitary “protection squadron”.

The number 420 is a common abbreviation – especially in far-right circles in the US – for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s birthday, 20 April.

Another car in the ad has the number plate SO LL 3849. The 84 is recognised as an abbreviation for the eighth and fourth letters of the alphabet – H and D – signifying the greeting “Heil Deutschland”. The numbers 3 and 9, together as number 39, are said to symbolise Christian identity and stand, by implication, for antisemitism.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Edeka’s Christmas ad.

German car owners are largely free to pick their own number and letter combinations for number plates at no extra cost. For several years authorities have noted a rise in the number of extremists using letter and number combinations to convey messages and signify their allegiances.

Sabine Bamberger-Stemmann, the director of Hamburg’s agency of civic education, a federal public authority that provides political education across Germany, has analysed the number plates and said she is convinced the Nazi symbolism must have been deliberately placed.

“The 420 comes from the Anglo-Saxon area, but in rightwing circles here [in Germany] it’s also the established abbreviation for Hitler’s birthday,” she told Manager Magazin.

“The ‘84’ clearly stands for Heil Deutschland,” she added. “The statement being made is very clear.”

The Hamburg-based Edeka corporation, which was founded in the late 19th century and has a 26% market share, has said the number plates were made up and the symbolism was not deliberate.

It said the MU SS of the first number plate was meant to spell out the word muss (must) – one of the key messages in the ad, which shows a family, in particular a stressed mother, rushing around ahead of Christmas trying to complete various tasks while their children look increasingly neglected. The message of the advert is that customers could save time by buying food at Edeka.

“The number plate with ‘MU SS’ is a fantasy number plate, based on the title song in our spot,” an Edeka spokesman told German media. “We regret the fact that a wrong impression is created here. This was in no way our intention.”

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But Bamberger-Stemmann said she could not accept the explanation. “I don’t believe it’s a faux pas, as some people are suggesting on the internet. Considering the number of far-right codes accumulated here, that is disarming and implausible.”



She said that in addition to the symbolism, the advert did its best to “convey an idyllic world, thereby conveying values that the new right stands for”.

Jung von Matt, the Hamburg advertising agency responsible for creating the ad on behalf of Edeka, has so far not responded to requests for a statement, referring all inquiries to Edeka’s press office.

Numbers such as 88 – standing for HH, or Heil Hitler, as H is the eighth letter in the alphabet – have been banned by the transport ministry for several years, alongside 18 (Adolf Hitler), and 74, a symbol of a pan-Germanic single nation state.

Neo-Nazis have increasingly looked for ways to outwit the authorities by inventing combinations not immediately recognisable as anything to do with the far right. A few years ago the number 14 was in vogue, a nod to the neo-Nazi slogan popular in far-right circles in America “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”, known as the 14 Words.