Wal-Mart Says Ad With Nazis Was Error

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday that it would apologize for helping fund a full-page advertisement showing Nazi supporters burning books that was placed in an Arizona newspaper by a group that is fighting proposed restrictions on Wal-Mart Supercenters.

The advertisement, which ran May 6 and 8 in the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff, urges readers to protect their constitutional freedoms by rejecting a proposition that might limit the building of Supercenters.

The photo in the ad shows a group of Nazi supporters throwing books onto a fire. “Should we let government tell us what we can read?” says the text under the photo. “Of course not.” The ad continues, “So why should we allow local government to limit where we can shop?”

Wal-Mart reviewed and approved the ad without realizing that the people depicted in the photo were Nazi supporters, community affairs director Daphne Davis Moore said.

“There was no intent to compare the proposition with Nazi Germany,” Davis Moore said. “That would be terribly inappropriate, and it’s a terrible mistake, one that should not have happened.”

Davis Moore said Wal-Mart would run a quarter-page ad apologizing in the Daily Sun as early as this weekend.

Wal-Mart is facing increasing opposition nationwide from labor and community groups that are seeking to limit its expansion and improve the wages and benefits of workers. Protect Flagstaff’s Future, the group that placed the ad in the newspaper, is battling Proposition 100, which would prohibit retailers from building stores larger than 125,000 square feet. Wal-Mart’s Supercenters average 147,000 square feet.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company helped fund the ad by giving $280,000 to $300,000 to 5-month-old Protect Flagstaff’s Future, said Chuck Coughlin, designer of the ad.