Two German federal police officers and a police auxiliary volunteer are being investigated for exchanging Nazi salutes and making racist comments in Rosenheim, Bavaria, Deutsche Welle reported Saturday.
Rosenheim is a 50 minutes drive from Munich, Bavaria, where Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch took place, when about 2,000 Nazis tried to take over the local government.
A witness said they saw the officers making the Nazi salute and uttering racist slurs outside a beer hall, Bavarian police said on Saturday.
In their statement, police said that the comments of the three men were “table talk,” made under the influence of alcohol.
A police spokesman told the DPA news agency that the two federal police officers, ages 44 and 45, were not employed by the Rosenheim police department.
In Germany, Nazi salutes in written form, vocally, and even straight-extending the right arm as a saluting gesture (with or without the phrase Sieg Heil), are a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison.