Threat To Game That Makes Hitler A Top Trump

The German makers of a card game based on history's worst dictators have been threatened with legal action over Adolf Hitler.

The Top Trumps-style game, called Tyrannen (or Tyrants, in English) is made up of 32 cards of murderous despots from the 20th century.

The pack includes Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin and Franco and each card contains facts about them, such as when they came to power and an estimate of how many people they killed.

But now the makers, Weltquartett, are being investigated by prosecutors in Nuremberg over the use of the swastika on the Hitler card.

The Nazi is named as the top trump, or "Der Blitztrompf", in the children's game.

German law states that the infamous Third Reich sign is a "symbol of an unconstitutional organisation" and cannot be displayed anywhere in public.

The symbol is only half visible on the card but last week one of the 10-euro packs on sale at toy fair in the German city was seized by police.

The game has been on sale since 2008 but officers are now investigating whether it is breaking the law.

Tyrannen splits the leaders into the regions of the world they came from and the aim of the game is to collect matching groups, eg. Asia or Africa.

The person with no tyrants in their hand is declared the winner.

In the traditional game the cards might feature cars or military weapons such as tanks and planes.

But Jurgen Kittel and Jorg Wagner, the men behind Weltquartett, have also created versions of the game with drugs and diseases of the world as the themes.