Appliance Name Tied to Nazis Withdrawn
From Times Wire Reports
German appliance maker BSH Bosch Siemens said it has withdrawn U.S. trademark applications containing the word “Zyklon”--chosen because it means cyclone in German but dropped because it was also the name of the poison gas used in Nazi death camps.
The company said the choice was inadvertent. Spokeswoman Barbara Trost said, “We do not want to offend anybody.”
“It’s incomprehensible and I can only imagine it was [owing] to younger people who don’t know their history,” said Charlotte Knobloch, vice president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews.
