SOME of the world's biggest pop stars have been given a huge dressing down for taking to the stage looking like NAZI troopers.

The trend was highlighted when a Thai starlet was caught on camera wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a swastika on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

6 Keyakizaka46 members in outfits resembling SS officers

Pichayapa 'Namsai' Natha - of all-girl band BNK48 - apologised tearfully and begged for forgiveness over her fascist fashion faux pas.

But she isn't the only Asian pop star to be lambasted for looking more SS than M&S - including the king of K-pop themselves BTS.

The South Korean giants were forced to apologise after a photo emerged of band leader RM wearing a hat with a badge resembling Nazi insignia.

The image quickly went viral, prompting criticism from Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Centre which said the symbol was the Nazi SS Death Head logo.

"It is clear that those designing and promoting this group's career are too comfortable with denigrating the memory of the past... the management should publicly apologise," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a director at the centre, at the time.

FLAG DAY FOR BTS STARS

The band's management (Big Hit Entertainment) said the hat which had caused offence had been given to the singer to wear by a stylist at a magazine photo shoot in 2014.

The band also came under fire for waving large flags at a 2017 concert that were said to be "eerily similar" to Nazi swastikas, reports the SCMP.

Big Hit later said: "The flags and images were creative elements completely unrelated to national socialism, and the core message of the performance itself was criticism against restrictively uniform and authoritarian educational systems.

The flags and images were creative elements completely unrelated to national socialism Big Hit Entertainment

"The performance is in no way associated with National Socialism as some observers have alleged, and in fact it should be noted that the performance includes creative elements that are designed to direct criticism against these very elements of totalitarianism."

BTS's profile has skyrocketed in recent years after becoming the first K-pop band to win a Billboard Music Award, the first K-pop act to sell out a US arena, and breaking the record for biggest music video debut.

Some of their fiercely loyal fans claimed at least some images of the hat must have been photoshopped.

HIMMLER COMPARISONS

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre also demanded an apology when top Japanese girl group Keyakizaka46 appeared on stage wearing black capes and caps resembling those of SS officers.

And South Korean girl band Pritz then caused a stir when their choice of outfits - black shirts and red and white armbands - were likened to those of WWII German officers.

The group’s management later said “the thought never occurred” to them that the outfits could be deemed Nazi-like.

They insisted the logo was inspired by a traffic sign to represent the band’s desire “to expand without a limit in four directions”.

And Indonesian star Ahmad Dhani drew comparisons with Heinrich Himmler when he appeared in a video wearing a carbon copy of the top Nazi's favoured uniform.

However, cultural experts say the bands are not out to cause deliberate offence. Institute for Security and Development Policy Non-Resident Research Fellow Elliot Brennan told CNN that Nazi Germany did not have the same historical meaning as for Westerners in Asia.