The video clip was removed, but not before being republished elsewhere on social media. He showed an oversized white hand pushing a black man away from a parked VW Golf, before throwing him into a restaurant called Petit Colon, which translates from French as Little Colonist or Little Settler.
"We posted a racist ad video on Volkswagen's Instagram channel," said VW brand sales and marketing manager Jürgen Stackmann and group manager Elke Heitmüller in apologies posted on the networks. social. "We understand the public's outrage at this. Because we are horrified too," they added.
"On behalf of Volkswagen AG, we apologize to the general public for this film. And we especially apologize to those who feel personally hurt by the racist content because of their own story."
Volkswagen apologized in a separate statement and said that, given his own history, "he does not tolerate any form of racism, xenophobia or discrimination".
The company was founded in 1937 under the Nazi regime and used forced labor from concentration camps to build vehicles in its early years. It is today the largest car manufacturer in the world, delivering nearly 11 million vehicles in 2019. The group manufactures cars under the brands VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat and Porsche.
Stackmann and Heitmüller described the video as "an insult to any decent person".
"We are ashamed of it and we cannot explain how it happened. All the more reason for us to make sure that we clarify this. And we will make the results and the consequences of the investigation public," they added. .
Last year, VW apologized after CEO Herbert Diess used the phrase "Ebit macht frei" or "Ebit frees you" at a management event. Ebit is short for profit before interest and taxes and is a measure of corporate profits. The sentence resembles "Arbeit macht frei", which was inscribed on the gates of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War.
In 2017, an advertisement using the equity method of women and used cars angered Chinese consumers and forced Audi to apologize. The announcement, which only aired in China, was produced by the used car division of the Volkswagen joint venture in China. It has also been withdrawn.
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