Chinese Tourists Arrested for Doing Nazi Salutes In Berlin. Two Chinese tourists doing Nazi Salute (Hitlergruss) in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin is not a mild case or laughing matter in Germany.
Chinese Tourists Arrested for Doing Nazi Salutes In Berlin
Both men aged 49 and 36, were arrested after police saw them taking pictures of each other in front of the country's most popular tourist spot on Saturday while saying "Heil Hitler" which is illegal in Germany can be punished by up to three years in prison
Tourists were released after paying a total of $ 1,200 with a guarantee set by a local judge, the case being the latest from a long line of foreign tourists to violate strict laws that prohibit not only the Hitler-style salute but also the Nazi symbol.
The Nazi Party was banned in Germany along with its symbols, such as salute and swastika of Hitler, and the imagery could be used only for teaching, film or historical research, or in a Nazi documentary or film.
Two British tourists were arrested last year for an offense similar to Chinese tourists near the Reichstag, and a 30-year-old Canadian tourist from Quebec had to pay a $ 170 security deposit to pay homage to a photo of him taken by a German woman at the same site in 2011 The countless police scores and security cameras monitor the Reichstag building all the time.
"We really treat this and all such cases as serious lawlessness," said Patricia Braemer, a Berlin police spokesman. "The law prohibiting the use of symbols that violate the Constitution applies not only to Germans but also to everyone in Germany, whoever comes here must know and respect the customs of the country."
Two high school students from the city of Rostock in the north are required to display the Nazi symbols because they salute Hitler on a class trip to the history museum in Berlin this year.
They took pictures of each other while standing in front of a poster showing Hitler and the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. When their teacher finds the photos, they make the students remove them from their phone. But the principal then handed his students to the police.
"There must be more people around who salute Hitler than the police see," said Braemer. "But the criminal code applies to everyone, and when we see it, we respond appropriately."
Several German police officers were also caught trying to make an inappropriate Nazi gag. A Berlin police officer assigned to guard the British Embassy there was suspended in 2004 after he saluted fellow officers at the beginning of his transition and shouted, "Heil Hitler."
In 2007, a Berlin man who taught his dog Adolf to instruct Hitlergruss - the German shepherd raised his right foot - was sentenced by a local court for up to five months in prison.
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