Passengers on Inter-City trains across the world ....
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| Hitler's Voice Heard On A Train |
... are used to intercom announcements from the driver or conductor. Usually they are bad news of one sort or another, delays, hold-ups, changes in schedule etc .... but usually they do not have political overtones.
However, on Sunday the 14th of May 2023, passengers on the Bregenz-Vienna train service in Austria where surprised when instead of a customer announcement, a recording of an Adolf Hitler speech was played on board the train. Then a crowd could also be heard shouting "Heil Hitler" and "Sieg Heil" over the trains speaker system, these messages repeated a number of times, and were interlaced with other messages such as bloopers by the actor who usually voiced the trains announcements, as well as a fire alarm message.
The train staff were reportedly unable to stop the recording playing, and were also unable to make their own announcements as the unexpected announcements played out for about 20 minutes. Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) later apologised in a statement that said: "We clearly distance ourselves from the content. We can currently assume that the announcements were made by people directly on the train via intercoms. We have reported the matter to the police."
One passenger apparently remarked that when other countries had technical problems, it involved the air conditioning breaking down. "In Austria, the technical problem is Hitler."
It was said that complaints had been filed against two people identified via CCTV footage, according to a press spokesman for the Lower Austrian police. However no arrests had been made, but it was thought that the couple were believed to have performed a similar stunt on a couple of other trains in the country.
The pair were believed to have opened the train conductors cabins with a key like those possessed by the train company’s employees, and then simplify placed a mobile phone with the messages next to the microphone. Use of Nazi salutes or language associated with the salute are illegal in Austria, so the jokesters could face fines or imprisonment after their May 2023 arrests and both were subsequently charged although as usual their final fates are not reported,
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