Daily Mail criticised by social media users for cartoon on refugees

Thousands have retweeted a post comparing the Mail's cartoon with that of an Austrian newspaper's from 1939

The bottom half of a cartoon published by Das Kleine Blatt in 1939

(Das Kleine Blatt)

Comparisons between a cartoon published by The Daily Mail and an anti-Semitic Viennese cartoon published before the Second World War have been drawn by social media users.

The Daily Mail cartoon, published in today’s newspaper, shows a group of people walking over the European border, among their feet small rodents heading in the same direction.

The second cartoon was published on 2 February 1939 in an issue of Das Kleine Blatt. It's headline asserts New York Jews are making “enormous profits” on the stock market, and depicts a colony of rats being swept from Germany but refused entry to “democratic” countries.

Social media users have strongly criticised the Mail’s cartoon, with a tweet comparing the two attracting thousands of retweets.

It comes amid increasing concerns over the EU’s open border policy following the Paris attacks on Friday. 129 people were killed and more than 300 injured after a multiple attackers opened fire and detonated suicide vests in the French capital.

It has subsequently emerged that a fake Syrian passport found at the scene of one of the attacks was used by its holder to pass through Greece and enter Europe.

The cartoon's publication follows an experiment by the indiivduals behind Daily Mail comments, which appeared to show readers 'upvoting' Nazi propaganda posted on the Mail Online website.

"We are not going to dignify these absurd comments which wilfully misrepresent this cartoon apart from to say that we have not received a single complaint from any reader," a Daily Mail spokesperson told The Independent.