Berlin: Canadian arrested for tasteless sense of humor

Thank God he wasn't American...we get enough bad press as it is.

You are kidding right,, that is ridiculus. Yes, tasteless and stupid act, but arrested and camera confiscated is stupider. I actually wonder what law was broken??

"What law was broken." Apparently in Germany it's illegal to give the Nazi salute. Wikipedia confirms this, and also tells the story of Adolph, a dog whose owner "was given a prison term of 5 months for, among other things, training his dog Adolf to raise his right paw in a Nazi salute every time the command 'Heil Hitler!' was uttered" (I'm not making this up, and no, it doesn't say whether the dog was also sentenced.)

Strafgesetzbuch section 86a prohibits the salute as well as various other types of expressions dealing with National Socialism. A sentence of up to three years is possible and simply getting a camera confiscated was only because the Germans have at least some tolerance for teh actions of idiot tourists. A few years ago a German national in Munich got five months in the slam for the same act of stupidity. If someone feels the need to play Nazi games then there are countries where they can express themselves, but Germany is NOT one of them!

Example: you'll notice that if you see pictures of a far-right rally in Germany, you won't see the Hakenkreutz anywhere. Skinheads might not be brightest people in the world, but even they don't want to give the authorities an easy reason to put them in jail.

Didn't the "saluting dog" case happen during the Nazi era, with the implication that the owner was accused of mocking the Nazis by training the dog to do the salute?

Perhaps he should have been deported as well? That is offensive on so many levels it just beggars belief. Roger

Question from Philip: "Didn't the "saluting dog" case happen during the Nazi era?" Wikipedia says the current saluting dog incident was in December 2007, here's the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute And here's the source report footnoted in the Wikipedia article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dogs-nazi-salute-lands-owner-in-jail-for-five-months-766438.html The story at the 2nd link clarifies that training the dog to do the salute was only one of many Nazi-related things the person had done. Adolph (the dog) went to a shelter, where he got a name change (from Adolph to Adi) and the shelter operator said they expected him to be adopted quickly because of the publicity surrounding the case.

I've know this for some time. In 1990 when our son spent half of a year as an 8th grader in Germany he said that the classroom seemed noisier because the students just blurted out when they wanted the teacher's attention or to say something. He said the teacher explained to him that it was illegal to raise one's hand in class because it was too much like a Nazi salute.

I did an officer exchange with the Luftwaffe Immelman Squadron. At the end of my trip, the squadron gave me a really nice poster, signed by all the commanders, that had an artistic history timeline of their unit. At the left is the WWI biplane model that Immelman flew. At right is the (at that time) current Tornado. In the middle is a thick cloud with an almost imperceptible silhouette of their WWII fighter plane. Yes, the Germans are pretty touchy about their Nazi history. I believe all symbols of that era are against the law, although I have no idea how much it's enforced.

@Mona: That's not related to Nazi history. When I went to school in the 80s and early 90s we did raise our hands to show up. That must have been an individual regulation. @Brad: It's only until recently that we can e.g. watch a "Hindenburg" movie with the actual swastika flag on the tail of the zeppelin.