Many believe the band will be releasing a new song, album or other announcement on Thursday.
But the Holocaust references touched off ire among Germany's Jewish community and many politicians."With this video, the band has crossed a line," Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the Bild newspaper. "The instrumentalization and trivialization of the Holocaust, as shown in the images, is irresponsible."Karin Prien, the education minister in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, slammed the video. "To use the Holocaust in such a way for advertising purposes is disgusting and disrespectful," she tweeted.Felix Klein, the government's commissioner for antisemitism told Bild that the video is "a tasteless exploitation of artistic freedom.”Lasse Petersdotter, a local German politician, tweeted that the band was courting controversy to boost record sales: "Whoever instrumentalizes the Shoah for advertising purposes does so knowingly - and is part of the problem, not part of the solution." This is the first new video from Rammstein - a band which has long courted controversy - in a decade. In the past, its videos have included nudity, violence, themes of cannibalism and fascist imagery.In 2009, the band's most recent album was placed by Germany on a list of restricted media, making it illegal for it to be displayed or made accessible to minors.