Frankfurt - Volkswagen's
management board on Thursday apologised for the company's
publication on its Instagram page of a racist advert and said
the clip was published because of a lack of cultural sensitivity
rather than because of racist intentions.
"We can state that racist intentions did not play any role
whatsoever. We found a lack of sensitivity and procedural
errors," Hiltrud Werner, Volkswagen's management board member
for integrity and legal affairs, said in a statement.
"Also on behalf of the Board of Management, I would like to
formally apologise for hurting people as a result of a lack of
intercultural sensitivity," Werner said.
In the clip, a black man is depicted next to a new VW Golf,
being pushed around by an oversized white hand, which then
flicks him into a building adorned with the sign "Petit Colon".
Petit Colon is a real cafe in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
located near the Teatro Colon. In French the term translates
into "small settler," which has colonial undertones.
Juergen Stackmann, the man responsible for VW's marketing, said that when he first saw the ad he thought it was fake..
"We rightly stand accused of a lack of intercultural
sensitivity here and, as member of the Board of Management
responsible for Marketing and After Sales, I take responsibility
for that. I will personally ensure that training is given, a
Diversity Board is consulted and controls are improved."
Volkswagen has a history of blunders. In March last year the
company's supervisory board condemned remarks made by the
company's chief executive after he appeared to allude to a
Nazi-era slogan.
At the time, Herbert Diess said "EBIT macht frei" before
apologising for the comments and explaining he in no way wanted
to draw a comparison to the Nazi-era slogan "Arbeit macht frei",
which appeared on the gates of Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
EBIT refers to a company's earnings before interest and
taxes and Diess had sought to emphasise that Volkswagen's
operational freedom would increase with higher profitability.