Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 16/01/2023
Claims that the German brand Hugo Boss is making uniforms for the Ukrainian army, as it did for the Nazis in World War II, are being shared on social media as part of the narrative that Nazism is widespread in Ukraine.
On January 17, 2023, the Twitter profile Prokopije posted a tweet about the “support” of the Hugo Boss fashion brand by making uniforms for the Ukrainian army.
Hugo Boss has announced that it will make 100,000 military uniforms to support the Ukrainians.
These allegations were published on several other Twitter and Facebook profiles along with claims that “Hugo Boss is dressing up as Nazis again” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The same claims were shared in other languages in the past weeks (1, 2, 3).
Is Hugo Boss making uniforms for the Ukrainian army?
While checking these claims from social networks, our partner fact-checking web portal Fake News Tragac contacted the company Hugo Boss. They confirmed that it is not true that the company makes uniforms for the Ukrainian army.
“Hugo Bos unequivocally rejects this claim, based on fake news. We have already taken steps regarding this issue, but also to suppress further disinformation regarding this false statement published on social networks”, says Hugo Bos media representative Daniela Ostuni.
As reported by Forbes in an article on January 16, 2023, Ukrainian military clothing is mainly produced by a company called M-TAC. It is a Ukrainian company that existed even before the war. In addition to M-TAC, military clothing is also sewn by order of the Ministry of Defense by large manufacturers, such as Textile-Contact, Tornado and Talana.
The dark history of Hugo Boss
Although it is incorrect that Hugo Boss makes Ukrainian uniforms, this company indeed produced uniforms for the Nazis in World War II.
Hugo Ferdinand Boss founded the company in 1924 in the German city of Metzingen, and one of the first major contracts he signed was with the German Nazi Party, for which he produced brown shirts. The company has produced military and SS uniforms since 1938, and since 1940 it has used prisoners from Poland and France for forced labour for these purposes. After the war, Boss, who was a member of the National Socialist Party, was prosecuted and punished for his contribution to the Nazi regime. He died in 1948 claiming that he joined the Nazi party to save his company. However, it is noted that his worldview was very close to the Nazi ideology.
In 2011, the company issued an apology for the use of forced labour and the production of uniforms for the Nazis.
The claim that Hugo Boss is “dressing Nazis again” is part of the propaganda narrative that Nazism is widespread in Ukraine in many segments of society, and therefore Russia is “denazifying” this country. Raskrinkavanje has already written about this topic several times:
https://raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/nacisti-u-rijeci-nisu-ukrajinske-izbjeglice
https://raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/volodimir-zelenski-nije-objavio-knjigu-moja-borba
Given all the facts, we evaluate the claim that the Hugo Boss company produces or announces the production of uniforms for the Ukrainian army, originally published on the profile Prokopije, as fake news.
We evaluate all transmissions of this claim as the distribution of fake news.