The scene in question, from 2004 film Downfall, shows the Nazi leader berate senior military officials for failing in their final bid to defend Berlin.

A popular Internet meme sees the real English subtitles from the scene replaced with other dialogue, in this case about bosses at BP.

Scott Tracey, a refinery worker at a BP plant in Australia, used the meme to parody company wage negotiations and was subsequently sacked because the comparison to Hitler was “highly offensive and inappropriate”.

However, Australia’s Fair Work Commission has now ruled that he had been unfairly dismissed because “anyone with knowledge of the meme could not seriously consider that the use of the clip was to make some point involving Hitler or Nazis”.

The use of the clip as a meme “has had the result of culturally dissociating it from the import of the historical events portrayed in the film”, the tribunal ruled.