One Newspaper's Spectacular Nazi Cremation Fail

The Millard Family Funeral Chapels in Missouri just wanted to advertise its cremation services with an image of a soldier and asked the Jefferson City News Tribune to create an advertisement that highlighted its "cremation with integrity."

Some low-level employee in the advertising department puts "soldier" in the search engine for their photo service and randomly picks a guy in a helmet, a guy who turns out to be a German Nazi soldier from World War II.

The full implications make take a minute to dawn on some people, but others of you will already be trying to pick your jaws off the floor. If there's any soldier who's going to cause maximum offense in a crematorium advertising mistake, it's going to be a Nazi.

Holocaust survivors, their descendants and a large contingent of WWII veterans opened their Sunday papers and, understandably, took exception and called out the funeral home on social media.

The newspaper has issued an apology: ‘On Sunday, July 19, an ad appeared in the Jefferson City News Tribune for Millard Family Funeral Chapels. The wrong image of a soldier was selected by the newspaper’s production department. We apologize on behalf of the News Tribune and Millard Family Funeral Chapels. We regret the mistake’.

So many questions: Doesn't the Jefferson City News Tribune most likely require its employees have a high school diploma before they get a job there? Is it possible that World War II is so far in the past that entry-level employees don't recognize a Nazi when they see one? And, seriously, how does the image of any soldier convince customers that you offer "cremation with integrity"?