Lesson learnt painfully. An American man is nursing wounds in Dresden after being punched for making a Nazi salute while drunk in a bar.
German police said Sunday that the 41-year-old man “was very drunk” early Saturday morning when he made the “Hitler greeting” at a bar in the Neustadt district of Dresden, Deputy Police chief Lutz Milker said.
“He didn’t say anything, just the salute. So far we have no explanation why.”
German dictator Adolf Hitler gives the Nazi salute from his motorcade in 1936.
The Nazi salute, Hitlergruß in German, is performed with the right arm straight and pointed forward slightly at an angle upward with palm down.
It was commonly used during the 3rd Reich as a greeting and to show loyalty to the Nazi regime. After the tourist stepped outside the bar, “someone hit him, and he had minor injuries to the head,” Milker said.
Paramedics bandaged him on the scene. He was not hospitalized.
Police has not yet mentioned the identity of the man.
The state prosecutor will examine the case and determine if he should be formally charged, Milker said. Making the Nazi salute is illegal in Germany.
German law forbids the use of this salute, along with uniforms and flags, unless it is being used for arts or science, research or teaching.
Last week, two Chinese tourists were arrested in Berlin for performing the banned salute in front of the city’s parliament building. The two were charged and fined €500 each.
This incident has happened at a time when a violent group of white supremacists (nationalists) in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, carrying tiki torches and chanting Nazi slogans including “Sieg heil” and “blood and soil” and giving the Nazi salute, is wrecking havoc.
