German Trade Office Director General, Hilmar Kaht, who hadn't been to the restaurant, said he couldn't understand why anyone would want to go there.
"I don't know why people would want to go to a restaurant with a prison theme and have their rights read to them and get handcuffed. I don't understand it, perhaps it's sadomasochism," Kaht said.
Over the past few years, several pop cultural phenomena involving Nazi paraphernalia have cropped up in Taipei, including people wearing motorcycle helmets with Nazi decals and other Nazi imagery being used in connection with various consumer products.
Last November, the Israeli Economic and Cultural Trade Office and the German Trade Office had to step in and protest when a local electrical company used a cartoon caricature of Adolf Hitler in advertisements in store windows and subway stations throughout the city to promote a German-made space heater.
The company, K.E. and Kingstone, said it had decided to use Hitler to emphasize that the heaters were made in Germany. After the local Jewish and German communities protested, the matter was resolved and the company removed its ads.
At least in the case of The Jail, the owner of the restaurant has demonstrated cultural sensitivity, Gutman said.
However, when and where another case will crop up again is unclear. As Gutman put it, "sometimes these things are in the hands of the decorators."
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