A popular bathhouse in Siberia was forced to shut down and reopen under a new name after it picked “Hotter Than Auschwitz” as its advertising slogan on its new web site.
The bathhouse, which opened four years ago, was named ABWEHR, which is a reference to Hitler’s military intelligence organization. But no one noticed the tie-in—or at least no one said anything about it. Then ABWEHR recently decided to launch a website, with the promotion “Hotter than in Auschwitz.” After a local news organization wrote a story about the slogan, the owner quickly blamed his programmer.
“I ordered the website three months ago and nobody cared about the slogan, but today journalists have been calling me all day long,” Vyacheslav Boyev, the owner, told Russian local news. “A programmer, a young guy, suggested the analogy that our banya (bathhouse) is so warm and hot that it is ‘hotter than in Auschwitz’ …I said okay without thinking about it.”
Boyer said he had no clue what ABWEHR meant and that he was “in shock” to find out. He blamed the programmer for that as well.
“The programmer explained that search engines look up by first letters. He said that if the word will start with a combination of “abw,” the site is guaranteed to be always on top.”
Boyer said he had no intention of naming his business after a Nazi military agency.
The website for the sauna, located in Novosibirsk, currently describes the bathhouse as being “located in a quiet and far location” and having a “hot and effective oven.” It promises that it “can hold six people.”