Bonn - A couple of harmless-looking squiggles have prompted the German government to order millions of commemorative stamps to be pulped because of Nazi connotations.
The symbols are runes, regarded as the earliest form of Germanic script. They appear on the edge of sheets of stamps launched earlier this month to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the German poet, Heinrich Heine. Unfortunately for the German post office, the runes were also used extensively during the Nazi era and were particularly associated with Hitler's elite SS fighting force.