Gnomes "have a certain abuse potential", say police prosecutors in Germany.
Hitler-saluting garden gnome in the clear
German prosecutors have decided that displaying a golden garden gnome with its right hand raised in a Hitler salute was not illegal. After a preliminary inquiry over the past week, prosecutors in Nuremberg ruled that the 40cm high gnome, being exhibityed in the Bavarian city's art gallery, was ridiculing the Nazis rather than promoting a return of the Third Reich.
"It is pretty clear that garden gnomes are silly and that they do silly things. In 1942 I would have been shot by the Nazis for this," prosecutors quoted the gnome's creator, artist Ottmar Hoerl, as saying.
Prosecutors said Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols were allowed if they were used clearly to counter national socialist ideology. They said however that gnomes "have a certain abuse potential" and warned anybody tempted to copy Hoerl's work would also find themselves in their cross hairs.
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