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As a student of history, I was recently perplexed by a controversial advertisement in a newspaper, in which a restaurant appallingly misused German culture and history.

The hip restaurant, let’s just call it “P & B,” is situated in a lavish mall in Central Jakarta and is known for its eclectic pizzas and flavored beers. Earlier this month, it ran an ad in a national newspaper’s classifieds section for its Oktoberfest promotion.

The images that appeared included a bunch of sausages, a German flag, two glasses of beer and, largest of all, the face of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, the restaurant bizarrely exploited the monstrous Hitler’s fame, or I should say infamy, and associated it with a promotion for a time-honored German cultural event.

Oktoberfest is a two-week-plus celebration that takes place annually in Munich. The Bavarian tradition is a festival of many glasses of ale, accompanied by delectable German dishes such as roast chicken, pork knuckles and frankfurters.

Hitler, on the other hand, was the jingoistic leader who wanted to conquer the world and ignited World War II, a global-scale catastrophe that resulted in more than 60 million casualties.

The mustached fascist was the racist psychopath behind the Holocaust, where his Nazis systematically and sadistically exterminated more than six million European Jews.

Here’s what is obviously wrong with the advertisement.

First of all, using the image of Hitler as a way to attract customers suggests that the restaurant’s management thinks the Austrian-born leader is a historical figure who deserves positive recognition, ignoring the fact that he left behind him one of the darkest chapters in mankind’s history. It’s as if Hitler is being paralleled with Mickey Mouse.

Moreover, I failed to find any comprehensible logic behind the ad, because the only relationship Oktoberfest has with Hitler is that both are associated with Germany.

Oktoberfest dates back to the early 1800s, while Hitler’s rise to infamy occurred in the mid-20th century; the former is a German tradition that is celebrated around the world, the latter single-handedly tarnished Germany’s reputation on the world stage; Oktoberfest brings joy to masses of partygoers, while Hitler’s notion of joy was the mass killings of Jews.

To juxtapose the festival and Hitler is not only preposterous, but also offensive to Germans, who want to disassociate themselves from this stigma, and Jews, who suffered so much under the abomination of the Nazi regime.

Even more dangerous is the implication that the ad might have for readers.

Not all Indonesians know what Oktoberfest is. In general, they have a limited understanding of world history. Many also have major misconceptions about who Hitler was. There are youngsters who wear Hitler T-shirts and collect Nazi paraphernalia, and some even give Hitler-style salutes during football games.

Placing Hitler in an Oktoberfest ad could mislead readers into thinking the beer-and-food gala is in honor of the tyrant.

There are three further reasons this advertisement worries me, and they have to do with whom we should blame.

First, the ad was placed by one of the most prominent restaurant groups in Jakarta, if not Indonesia, with establishments in the various corners of the city.

From what I know, the owner of the restaurant comes from the upper fabric of society and holds a degree from a Western country. Therefore, I feel it safe to assume that the owner hires employees with adequate educational backgrounds.

To have an establishment, which one would presume to be professionally run, place such an appalling advertisement is alarming.

Either the company is culturally ignorant and insensitive, or it is willing to use even the darkest history in the service of money as a part of its marketing campaign.

Second, the ad was placed in a leading national newspaper that has been around for more than 40 years.

The appearance of the ad makes me question the filtering process of what goes into the paper, and hope that this was a simple case of negligence.

Because if it wasn’t, it could mean that, one, the newspaper does not recognize Hitler as a bad person and, two, the drive for profit has reached the extent where virtually anything can fill the ad slots, as long as you can show them the money.

So can a terrorist group then, as a tribute, post an advertisement of a smirking Noordin M Top with a picture of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels behind him?

Armando Siahaan is a features reporter with the Jakarta Globe.