Leipzig – An entire high
school class in Germany is being investigated into after the teenage pupils
allegedly started greeting each other with ‘Heil Hitler’ and communicating in
Nazi slogans.
Parents and authorities are horrified after it emerged that the 29 boys
and girls have been swapping assorted Nazi sayings and slogans throughout the
school day on instant messaging-app WhatsApp.
Photos of 14 and 15-year-old students at a school near Leipzig in east
Germany show them giving Nazi salutes and wearing Hitler moustaches.
Students in class 9A at the Landsberg Gymnasiums near Leipzig regularly
made anti-Jewish slurs on the messaging app, while praising Hitler as a ‘great
man,’ local media reports.
Photos appeared in Germany’s biggest newspaper BILD on Tuesday showing
individuals giving the Hitler salute: one boy who was wearing a stuck-on Hitler
moustache had his face blacked out.
One of the messages from a student made a Holocaust joke that read: ‘Why
did Hitler kill himself? The Jews sent him the gas bill.’
Parents and teachers worry they are losing the battle with neo-Nazis
across the country who are increasing the pressure on schoolchildren to join
their ranks.
Fear: Parents are in shock after it emerged that all 29 students in the class, boys and girls ages 14 and 15, appear to have been engaging in the WhatsApp
Disgusting: Screen grabs from the WhatsApp conversations see students use ‘Sieg Heil’ phrase, right
Photos of 14 and 15-year-old students show them giving Nazi salutes and wearing Hitler moustaches
A spokesman the state educational affairs minister in Saxony-Anhalt
said: ‘I am shocked. If this is true there can only be one way forward here:
zero tolerance!’
The WhatsApp exchanges have been handed over to police and prosecutors.
Any public display of Nazi symbols, salutes or phrases is a strictly
forbidden act in modern-day Germany which can carry a first offence penalty of
up to six months in jail.
All the class students, like all children in Germany, have visited a
Nazi concentration camp and regularly learn about the excesses of the Third
Reich in classes.
Police said two teenagers are under investigation while a more extensive
probe gets underway next week when the school reopens after the half-term
break.
Media reports said a psychologist has been arranged to meet with the
children, teachers and their parents next week to try to get to the bottom of
the fascination with Nazism.
Neo-Nazi groups significantly stepped up their recruitment of children
in recent years.
The state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern near Berlin has started carrying out
background checks on would-be kindergarten employees after it was discovered
several had been infiltrated by far-right females.
