After critics complained that the monument resembled Adolf Hitler, a German man was forced to remove a commemorative statue of his late father.
The feud erupted recently in Weil im Schönbuch, Baden-Württemberg, after a man named Oliver — whose last name was withheld — erected the wooden sculpture on the grave of his father, Edwald E., a carpenter who died in 2013, according to the news agency.
The controversial doppelgänger sported Führer-like facial hair and a soccer jersey emblazoned with the number 88, which is code for "Heil Hitler" in the neo-Nazi movement because "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Concerned citizens complained to the mayor about the Nazi facsimile, and he ordered that the statue be removed from the cemetery while allowing Oliver to keep it on his own lawn.
The man's lawyer, on the other hand, insists that his client is "not a Nazi." In court, he explained that the jersey uniform was a nod to Edward E's 30-year stint as a soccer club cashier, and the "88" was the "number of the house in which the father lived."
Nonetheless, authorities have launched an investigation to determine whether the figurine violates the contentious German Criminal Code, which prohibits the "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations" except for artistic or educational purposes, according to the Daily Mail.
The law was primarily used to prohibit swastikas and other Nazi insignias and slogans, but it does not specify which specific symbols are prohibited.
This is not the first time a Hitler impersonator has sparked controversy in Western Europe. Authorities in Austria, where Nazi paraphernalia is also illegal, issued an arrest warrant for a man in Hitler's hometown who bore an uncanny resemblance to the German dictator — down to his iconic toothbrush moustache and military uniform — in 2017.
