Proctor & Gamble had to pull this detergent from the shelves in Germany because of a number on a soccer jersey depicted on the label which is supposedly a code word in praise of a universally-condemned sociopath politician who died almost 70 years ago. The numbers "18" and "88" are considered politically-incorrect and have actually been criminalized in some contexts within the modern German state.
Of course, the vast majority of shoppers in the stores buying laundry soap were born long after World War 2, have no sympathies with Nazism, and just want to wash their clothes. The company is foreign and obviously had no idea that at least 2 percent of the numerals between 1 and 100 have become politically-incorrect based on "hidden codes". They were trying to convey how many loads of laundry the product is capable of doing (18 for the liquid, 88 for the powder). So, just how do the forces of political-correctness in Germany expect Proctor & Gamble to communicate this information without using verboten numbers?
Proctor & Gamble also had a politically-incorrect logo controversy in the United States which resulted in the changing its classic 1851 logo in 1985 because of an idiotic rumor that the logo was Satanic - a rumor that was exploited by its competitors. There were enough "offended" people to make it worth P&G's while just to give up and give in to the tiny but vocal minority of people who were complaining.
Is anyone's life better off now that P&G doesn't use the old logo?
The great irony here is that Hitler was a paranoid control freak - as are all dictators, thugs, strongmen, and supreme leaders. All of these kinds of liberty-hating rulers engage in censorship and political-correctness. When Hitler was defeated, his opponents-become-successors took the baton from the hands of the Nazis by enforcing legal codes of political-correctness and forbidden speech that exist to this day. Hence the insanity of having to avoid the use of certain "controversial" numbers - not to mention a seemingly endless combination of other numbers.
At least put up a fight, people! How many numbers and letters and colors are people willing to be declared off-limits to normal, decent people because an infinitesimal handful of people with a repugnant ideology also uses them? The solution to repugnant speech is more free speech. Let National Socialism be refuted by liberty and free markets. Let freely-discussed history be its judge. The solution is not to repress free speech. That's like fixing lung cancer with cigarettes or treating cirrhosis with "Jack Daniels therapy."
When people of any nation respond to tyranny or terrorism by the willful self-destruction of their own liberties, the tyrants or terrorists have won. Germany surrendered first to the allied forces, and then to the Nazis. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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