German official fired for wishing Hitler happy birthday
October 29, 2018
The former soldier wrote the well-wishes on the anniversary of Hitler's birthday in 2016, calling the Nazi leader a "hero to many Germans." He was still in his probation period in the state civil service at the time.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Stein
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A German civil servant and former Bundeswehr soldier who wished Adolf Hitler "happy birthday" on social media during his probation period was rightfully fired, an administrative court has ruled.
Officials in the regional civil service in the western state of Hesse terminated the man's employment after discovering the Facebook post in 2016.
In the post, dated April 20, the official wrote that he "wished one of the most important people in German history happy birthday." Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.
"Irrespective of how loudly people stir up hatred against you, you were quite simply a hero to many Germans," he wrote. "I too declare my support for you."
The NPD is the most prominent neo-Nazi party active in GermanyImage: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Büttner
Hesse officials also discovered that the man had taken part in two demonstrations by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).
During one of the protests on January 30 — the anniversary of Hitler's appointment as German chancellor in 1933 — he held up a banner emblazoned with the words "asylum fraud makes us poor."
The man had entered the Hesse civil service in 2014 after serving 12 years in the German military.
In its decision published on Monday, the Hesse administrative court upheld the man's firing and rejected his accompanying complaint. He had claimed to have no contact to the extreme right or the NPD and that he only wanted to demonstrate against the German government's asylum policy.
amp/msh (AFP, epd)
The men who led Nazi Germany
The German National Socialist Workers' party profoundly affected the course of 20th-century world history with their ideology, propaganda and crimes. Who were the key leaders of the movement?
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Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
As Hitler's Propaganda Minister, the virulently anti-Semitic Goebbels was responsible for making sure a single, iron-clad Nazi message reached every citizen of the Third Reich. He strangled freedom of the press, controlled all media, arts, and information, and pushed Hitler to declare "Total War." He and his wife committed suicide in 1945, after poisoning their six children.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) developed his anti-Semitic, anti-communist and racist ideology well before coming to power as Chancellor in 1933. He undermined political institutions to transform Germany into a totalitarian state. From 1939 to 1945, he led Germany in World War II while overseeing the Holocaust. He committed suicide in April 1945.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
As leader of the Nazi paramilitary SS ("Schutzstaffel"), Himmler was one of the Nazi party members most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He also served as Chief of Police and Minister of the Interior, thereby controlling all of the Third Reich's security forces. He oversaw the construction and operations of all extermination camps, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered.
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Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)
Hess joined the Nazi party in 1920 and took part in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to gain power. While in prison, he helped Hitler write "Mein Kampf." Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 to attempt a peace negotiation, where he was arrested and held until the war's end. In 1946, he stood trial in Nuremberg and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.
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Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)
Alongside Himmler, Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust. As an SS Lieutenant colonel, he managed the mass deportations of Jews to Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann fled to Austria and then to Argentina, where he was captured by the Israeli Mossad in 1960. Tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 1962.
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Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
A participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Göring became the second-most powerful man in Germany once the Nazis took power. He founded the Gestapo, the Secret State Police, and served as Luftwaffe commander until just before the war's end, though he increasingly lost favor with Hitler. Göring was sentenced to death at Nuremberg but committed suicide the night before it was enacted.
