Tattoo fixers on removing Nazi symbols: ‘You don’t know if they’re changing or hiding’

Senate hopeful Graham Platner covered up his tattoo once he learned of its Nazi associations. It’s a problem so common there are free programs for it

Last week, Graham Platner, a progressive Democrat running for the US Senate in Maine, responded to a burst of online criticism by doing something few candidates for high office are ever required to do: he posted a topless photo of himself on the internet.

It was an unusual moment in a campaign that had so far gone his way. Platner had won praise from progressives and secured the backing of Bernie Sanders. But his campaign came unstuck when a video surfaced of him dancing in his underwear at his brother’s wedding – and revealing a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest. The design, known as the Totenkopf, is widely recognised as a Nazi symbol.