Indonesia’s Nazi-themed cafe packs away the swastikas and Hitler painting after being forced to shut up shop

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Indonesian customers come in second world war-style military uniforms at the reopened SoldatenKaffee in 2014. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:34pm, 26 Jan 2017Updated: 11:01pm, 26 Jan 2017

A controversial Nazi-themed cafe in Indonesia with swastika-bearing walls has closed over a lack of customers, a lawyer said on Thursday, but pledged it would reopen at a bigger location.

The SoldatenKaffee (“The Soldiers’ Cafe”), which also sports a painting of Adolf Hitler, sparked global outrage when reports about the unusual venue in the city of Bandung surfaced several years ago.

The owner Henry Mulyana voluntarily shut the cafe in 2013 after receiving death threats but it was reopened a year later, with the image of the Nazi leader still in place and three huge iron eagles with swastikas on display. But in the end it was not the controversy that forced the cafe to close its doors again – but a lack of interest.

Mulyana’s lawyer Rohman Hidayat confirmed that the SoldatenKaffee had shut as there were not enough customers to support it, but said he did not believe people had been put off by the theme.

“The public interest is low because the current location is not very strategic,” Hidayat said, adding that the cafe was shut six months ago and the decision was taken purely for business reasons.

He said Mulyana was looking for a better location in downtown Bandung – the previous site was in a quiet area outside the centre – and for new investors to build a bigger cafe, although he did not say when it would reopen.

Hidayat insisted the SoldatenKaffe, which takes its name from cafes where German troops used to hang out in occupied Paris during the second world war, would still display the Nazi memorabilia when it opened again. “Those objects are not illegal,” he said. “It’s not because we love Hitler, we only love things related to the second world war.”