Siemens made its application to trademark Zyklon in the US last year, but has since withdrawn it following outrage from Jewish groups. Zyklon B was the name of the poisonous gas used in German-run death camps including those at Majdanek and Auschwitz.

The application to the US Patent & Trademark Office to register Zyklon as a brand trademark was made by Siemens consumer products operation Bosch Siemens Hausgeraete. It filed two applications, according to a BBC report, one of which was for a range of home products, including gas ovens.

Dr Shimon Samuels, head of the European arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said: "Siemens should know better because it was directly complicit in the use of slave labour. This is a major, major scandal."

The public highlighting of the application comes as a huge embarrassment for the German firm, which is already having to finally play compensation to victims for its use of slave labour under the Nazis. In all, Germany is expected to pay more than £3.5bn in compensation to victims and their families.

A spokesman for Siemens said: "We are very sorry if this trademark application has caused any offence."

The case follows the exposure last week of German sportswear firm Umbro being forced to apologise for a brand of trainer called Zyklon.

But despite its apology and insistence that it has no designs to use the name in the US, Siemens already uses the Zyklon name in Germany where the word translates as "Cyclone".

In Germany, the firm uses the 'brand name' for some Siemens vacuum cleaners.

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