Two German federal police officers and a voluntary security force member are being probed over incitement allegations after a witness claimed that they were making the infamous Nazi salute and expressing racist remarks while drinking in a pub in Rosenheim, southern Bavaria.
The police issued a statement saying the three men were engaged in "table talk" and were heavily influenced by alcohol, which could soften the sentence. According to a police spokesman, cited by the DPA, the federal police officers, aged 44 and 45, were not employed by a local law enforcement agency.
Nazi salutations in public, as well as use of respective symbols and insignia, are illegal and may carry a sentence in Germany. Last year, an American citizen was beaten by a local for making the "sieg heil" salute; shortly after, two Chinese tourists were arrested for making the notorious gesture in front of Berlin's Reichstag.
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There is an array of other countries, along with Germany, where performing the Nazi salute — a short-hand for fascism — may see perpetrators end up behind bars, namely Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Sweden.