Nuremberg, Germany - German prosecutors decided Wednesday to drop a case over a garden gnome that has its right arm raised in a "Heil Hitler" salute. A German artist, Ottmar Hoerl, made 700 of the gnomes for an exhibition entitled "Dancing with the Devil" at a Nuremberg art gallery.
A visitor to the gallery objected and lodged a complaint that Hoerl had violated German laws prohibiting the reproduction of Nazi symbols or slogans. News of the "Nazi gnome" promptly went around the world.
The prosecutors in Nuremberg said they would not put Hoerl on trial because he was obviously mocking the Nazis, not honouring them, and had made the gnomes as art. Gnomes used to be popular as garden decorations.
"Taken as a whole, his opposition to Nazi ideology is plain," a prosecutor said.
The 59-year-old sculptor, professor of design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg, said earlier the figure was intended to poke fun at the Nazis.
"The Nazis would have massacred me for the work if it had been done in 1942," he said.
The case bears similarities to that of a German trader who was fined 3,600 euros (5,000 dollars) in 2006 for using crossed-out swastikas on stickers, buttons and T-shirts to protest far-right extremism.
The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe later overturned the verdict, saying it was not a criminal offence to display symbols that are "obviously and clearly" meant to demonstrate opposition to Nazism.
